Hate crimes on the rise in Alberta
The president of the Alberta Hate Crime Committee says that hate crime rates have been steadily on the increase throughout Alberta over the last few years.
Detective Stephen Camp, who is also a homicide detective with the Edmonton Police Service, says that most crimes aren't violence related or committed by hate groups.
"Most hate crimes are not committed by organized hate groups, probably about eighty percent of the stats are committed by just regular community members. Most hate crimes are property related crimes and if you look at the stats through the years mischief which is vandalism to property is usually one of the higher spikes on the graph in regards to hate crimes."
Statistics show that most hate crimes are committed by male youths and young adults between the ages of 14 and 25, according to Camp.
"It's a learned behavior, no one's born with that. There's a number of venues to learn that behavior from whether it's from your friends at school, or at work, or through the internet."
Camp continues to say that the internet has become a key factor in hate groups spreading their ideas and it's not easy to take down those websites.
"They're easy to find as far as they look you can find a myriad of different styles of websites and what message they're trying to put out there. Section two of the Charter is quite clear, freedom of expression and if you have a website that's not breeching the hate propaganda sections of the criminal code. Here in Canada it's a free democratic society, you can have a website there with your opinion as long as it doesn't breach 319 you're fine. Now a lot of websites I think a lot of people are attracted to in Canada are from the US, First Amendment there is highly protected and that's where you'll find a lot of the really egregious material that's beyond offensive and if that site was up and running though a Canadian group would definitely be breaching section 319."
Camp says if you have been a victim of a hate crime, report it to police. (pb)
Hate crimes on the rise in Alberta - iNews880.com
The president of the Alberta Hate Crime Committee says that hate crime rates have been steadily on the increase throughout Alberta over the last few years.
Detective Stephen Camp, who is also a homicide detective with the Edmonton Police Service, says that most crimes aren't violence related or committed by hate groups.
"Most hate crimes are not committed by organized hate groups, probably about eighty percent of the stats are committed by just regular community members. Most hate crimes are property related crimes and if you look at the stats through the years mischief which is vandalism to property is usually one of the higher spikes on the graph in regards to hate crimes."
Statistics show that most hate crimes are committed by male youths and young adults between the ages of 14 and 25, according to Camp.
"It's a learned behavior, no one's born with that. There's a number of venues to learn that behavior from whether it's from your friends at school, or at work, or through the internet."
Camp continues to say that the internet has become a key factor in hate groups spreading their ideas and it's not easy to take down those websites.
"They're easy to find as far as they look you can find a myriad of different styles of websites and what message they're trying to put out there. Section two of the Charter is quite clear, freedom of expression and if you have a website that's not breeching the hate propaganda sections of the criminal code. Here in Canada it's a free democratic society, you can have a website there with your opinion as long as it doesn't breach 319 you're fine. Now a lot of websites I think a lot of people are attracted to in Canada are from the US, First Amendment there is highly protected and that's where you'll find a lot of the really egregious material that's beyond offensive and if that site was up and running though a Canadian group would definitely be breaching section 319."
Camp says if you have been a victim of a hate crime, report it to police. (pb)
Hate crimes on the rise in Alberta - iNews880.com
