FINAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Final Writing Assignment

Blythe Falvey

Wentworth Institute of Technology

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Part 1:

After scouring the campus at Wentworth Institute of Technology, I have noted five

different locations where personal and or property victimization is likely. The locations that I

have found are the library, Beatty cafeteria, the bike racks on either side of the Beatty building,

the dorm rooms in particular the ones in Baker Hall, and the parking lots. Using the routine

activities theory of needing a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable

guardian, I think that these locations would be the most ideal if someone wanted to steal or

vandalize someone else’s property.

Looking around the Schumann Library, I would say that it would be around a six or

seven on a scale of one to ten in terms of the likelihood of personal and or property

victimization. If someone was very motivated, they could easily find someone who was sleeping

in one of the chairs and then take their bag or something. Depending on how concentrated the

target is on their work they also might not even notice if the perpetrator walked by and took

something out of their bag because most of the potential targets in the library have headphones

in, therefore; there is a higher chance that they wouldn’t hear. In addition, sometimes people

leave their things unattended in the library which would make the theft even easier. What would

deter people from committing a crime in the library is the number of people who would

potentially witness the crime being committed. Most of the times that I have been in the library

there have been a lot of other people working, so if someone were to go later at night or in the

morning when there are usually fewer people in the library there would be a lower chance of

someone else witness them committing the crime.

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Similarly, to Schumann Library I would say that the cafeteria in Beatty would also be

around a six or seven for the likelihood of personal and or property victimization. Though there

are a lot of people that would deter someone from committing a crime, there are a lot of other

people and distractions happening, meaning that someone might not be paying as much attention

to their personal property. When the cafeteria is crowded people are usually sitting close to each

other so in theory if someone was good at theft and was motivated enough, they could just reach

into someone’s bag and take stuff out and if the target was distracted in a conversation with other

people at their table chances are they would not notice or they would think that you were taking

stuff out of your bag in the bags were next to each other. Again, if a bag was left unattended, the

thief could just take the whole bag and take valuables out of it later without the victim even

notice.

Stepping outside of Beatty you come across bike racks on either side of the building. One

of the racks is in an enclosed area where you need your student ID to enter, and the other bike

rack is out in the open. The enclosed bike rack I would say would be a five likelihood and the

open bike racks would be closer to an eight or nine. Both racks had many expensive-looking

bikes with cable locks that are easily cut with things like bolt cutters. That would be a quick and

easy way to steal the bikes. Because you must have access and scan your ID to get into the

enclosed bike area it would be easier to look through the scan in records to see who had entered

that area, so if the victim wanted to find who stole their bike, it would be easier to find the culprit

if the bike was stolen from the enclosed area compared to the open bike racks. The open bike

racks have more of an absence of a capable guardian than the enclosed area making it a more

desirable bike rack to steal a bike. The offender would need to have a lot more motivation as

well to go through the process of getting access to get into the area which could be a deterring
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factor for some offenders. In addition, the bike racks might prevent people from stealing bike

frames, but if the tires and other attachments on the bike are not locked, they could be stolen by

determined thieves as well. Front and rear tires hold value, and they can be very expensive to

replace, so if a thief was looking for a convenient thing to take without resorting to bolt cutters,

they could still steal parts of bikes from these zones.

Like the bike racks, another place where you could steal things is in the parking lots. If

the offender was motivated enough, they could go around the car parking lots and see which cars

were unlocked or which locks were pickable, and then if they saw a valuable item in the car, they

could then steal it. From my observations during the day, there are not too many people walking

around any of the other parking lots so there wouldn’t be too many other capable gandingans

which is why I would say that the car parking lots could be around an eight or nine in terms of

likelihood of theft or vandalization. However, if a car alarm was set off, the thief would need to

evacuate quickly without being seen in the area, which could make escaping with the stolen

goods a challenge.

Another location where there could be a high likelihood of personal and or property

victimization is in the dorms, in particular the Baker dorms. I have met people who have told me

that they do not lock their dorm room dorms so there is nothing stopping people from going

around and seeing whose dorms are open and going in and stealing and or vandalizing their

property. The only thing that would be potential guardians would be the other people on that

floor, the RA’s, the front desk people during certain times, and not having dorm access after a

certain time if it isn’t your dorm and potential dormmates/ suite mates. I would say that this

would be a five-level of likeliness.

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For all five locations, the strongest guardian is the many people who could witness the

offender committing the crime. Though in the cafeteria and library the number of people might

make it easier to blend in and commit the crime without a lot of suspicions, the fear of someone

noticing and getting caught might outweigh the offender’s motivation to commit the crime.

Part 2:

Over the last decade hate crimes have been overall on the rise. If we look at data taken

from the hate crime statistics section of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) we can

see that overall, the percentage of victims due to hate crimes biases against these categories

increases (Figure 1 and 2). Even from just 2019 to 2020 there was a spike in reported hate

crimes. “The spike in 2020 follows a recent upward trend in bias incidents, and it was a 6%

increase over 2019” (Hernandez, 2021). Many experts believe that the increase in victims was a

lot bigger than what the UCR said since “over 60 jurisdictions with populations over 100,000

affirmatively reported zero hate crimes is simply not credible” (Hernandez, 2021).

Figure 1: There was no data for the year 2012. The UCR only started getting statistics on gender identity and gender bias in

2013. At the same time in 2016 the UCR combined race and ethnicity/national origin to a singular category

race/ethnicity/ancestry.
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Figure 2: UCR data for 2020 (Anon., 2021)

For race we can see that it went from 48.2% - 61.8% in the last ten years. Sexual

orientation increased around 1.4%, disability increased .8% and religion had a 1.1% increased

from 2010 to 2019 but then had an overall decrease of 5.3% from 2010 to 2020. Since the UCR

stated collecting data on Gender identity and gender bias in 2013 we can see that from 2013-

2020 gender identity had an overall 2.2% increase in victims and gender bias had a 0.3%

increase in victims.

Though there are a lot of factors that play into why hate crimes have increased over the

past decade, a big factor is the election of President Donald Trump back in 2016. “Hate crimes

with racial or ethnic bias jumped the day after President Trump won the 2016 election, from 10

to 27” (Williams, 2018). From the start of his presidency with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee

during the national anthem, the many families being separated at the US Mexico borders, the

riots and the increase with Asian hate at the end of his presidency, the term that President Trump

served can be associated with the increase in hate crimes especially relating to racial biases.
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Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump repeatedly emboldened and enabled racists.

He publicly supported white power initiatives, and videos of his supporters chanting ‘white

power’ garnered thousands of retweets. He encouraged hate groups and police violence by

calling anti-Semites and white supremacists “very fine people” (Anon., 2019). Therefore, it is no

surprise that hate crime increased during and after his presidency.

Towards the end of his presidency with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic there was an

increase in racial hate towards Asian people because the virus had originated at a wet market in

Wuhan, China. The cramped conditions of the wet market created the perfect environment for a

viral species crossover that resulted in the Covid-19 novel virus emerging. Because the outbreak

started in China, Asians were blamed for causing the pandemic. In America, Asian-Americans

who had nothing to do with Wuhan were victims of hate crimes including being the target of

racist slurs and physical violence. Donald Trump was only too happy to play into this “othering”

and racism directed at Asian-Americans, calling the virus the “China virus” and “China flu”

among other terms. “Many Asian Americans and others blame former President Donald Trump

for ratcheting up the danger by talking about the virus in racially charged terms” (Press, 2021).

In addition to hate crimes against race being one of the most focused on in society the

hate crimes against religious groups, specifically those against Muslims have, also been on the

rise in recent years. Looking at Figure 3, we can see that in 2016, the number of Muslim assaults

exceeded what it had been during 9/11. Again, the rise in this crime was likely associated with

the 2016 election. Trump had strong ideas on who are “good” and “bad” and made that clear

throughout his campaign and presidency. With some people still hating and blaming those from

the Middle East for what happened on 9/11, their racist perceptions were in a way validated by

President Trump and his own Islamophobia. I think that people understood Trump’s nationalistic
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beliefs that they should not be allowed in the United States, and as a result they lashed out and

chose to follow the leader and hate on those who are Muslim. “From start to finish, the 2016

presidential election vividly revealed that Islamophobia is alive, and potent and politically

resonant as ever” (Zurcher 2017).

Figure 3 (Kishi, 2021)

As people in our country become more verbally outspoken, especially with younger

generations being more proactive and taking a stand on issues like LGBTQ rights, more people

who do not support these ideals feel like the only way to fight back is through violence. “The

number of anti-LGBTQ hate groups soared 43 percent last year, rising from 49 groups in 2018 to

70 in 2019” (Moreau, 2020). Similarly, to the other hate groups the main reason why the

number of victims for gender identity and gender bias increased especially over the last four

years is because of the Trump administration and government officials. Trump “has fully

embraced anti-LGBTQ hate groups and their agenda of dismantling federal protections and

resources for LGBTQ people” (Moreau, 2020).

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I think that a major reason why hate crime has increased is also partially due to the

media and the publicity that some people get when they participate in hate crime. With all the

social media attention people might feel like they can get fame for doing something bad. They

also might get a sense of power of the certain group of individuals. Others might feel like they

are fighting for a cause, if they genuinely believe that people of a certain type are “bad” than in

their head they are fighting for what they believe in even if it is wrong. With all the hate groups

on social media and the fact that people are being more and more encouraged to be

themselves and speak up for what they believe in those who feel a lot of hatred are in a way

being encouraged to express their views. Even with the peaceful protests that were happening

throughout our nation people who disagreed felt like violence was the only way to try and get

their point across. This reasoning is also why more and more violence arose between various

hate groups. The mentality of an eye for an eye plays a role in why violence and the number of

victims has risen over the years.

As we can see, hate crimes against many marginalized groups have been steadily on the

rise since 2016. The obvious cause of this is the Trump presidency: “Trump, because he is

willing to basically tolerate this kind of rhetoric, and in some cases even, I would say, encourage

this kind of rhetoric, has opened the floodgates for racism, antisemitism, bigotry, anti-immigrant

sentiment, anti-LGBTQ, anti-special needs, misogyny” (Anon., 2019). Before the Trump

presidency, nationalism and xenophobia had been on the rise; however, Trump emboldened

racists to perform hate crimes more than ever before.

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References:

Alcindor, Yamiche. 2020. “Trump Insists on Using Racist Language. Will That Approach Win

Him Support?” PBS. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-insists-on-using-racist-language-will-that-

approach-win-him-support). 

Anon. 2010. “Hate Crime.” FBI. Retrieved December 8, 2021 (https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime). 

Anon. 2019. “Why Hate Crimes Are on the Rise.” Harvard Divinity School (HDS). Retrieved

December 8, 2021 (https://hds.harvard.edu/news/2019/04/23/podcast-why-hate-crimes-are-

rise). 

Anon. 2021. “Hate Crime Statistics.” The United States Department of Justice. Retrieved

December 8, 2021 (https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/hate-crime-statistics). 

Brian Levin Professor. 2021. “Explaining the Rise in Hate Crimes against Muslims in the

US.” The Conversation. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://theconversation.com/explaining-the-rise-in-hate-crimes-against-muslims-in-the-us-

80304). 

Carmon, Irin. 2017. “Donald Trump's Worst Offense? Mocking Disabled Reporter, Poll

Finds.” NBCNews.com. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-s-worst-offense-mocking-

disabled-reporter-poll-finds-n627736). 
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Hernandez, Joe. 2021. “Hate Crimes Reach the Highest Level in More than a Decade.” NPR.

Retrieved December 8, 2021 (https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1032932257/hate-crimes-

reach-the-highest-level-in-more-than-a-decade). 

Kishi, Katayoun. 2021. “Assaults against Muslims in U.S. Surpass 2001 Level.” Pew Research

Center. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-

surpass-2001-level/). 

Moreau, Julie. 2020. “Anti-LGBTQ Hate Groups on the Rise in U.S., Report

Warns.” NBCNews.com. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/anti-lgbtq-hate-groups-rise-u-s-report-warns-

n1171956). 

Press, The Associated. 2021. “More than 9,000 Anti-Asian Incidents Have Been Reported since

the Pandemic Began.” NPR. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1027236499/anti-asian-hate-crimes-assaults-pandemic-

incidents-aapi). 

Williams, Aaron. 2021. “Analysis | Hate Crimes Rose the Day after Trump Was Elected, FBI

Data Show.” The Washington Post. Retrieved December 8, 2021

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/03/23/hate-crimes-rose-the-

day-after-trump-was-elected-fbi-data-show/). 

Zurcher, Anthony. 2017. “What Trump Team Has Said about Islam.” BBC News. Retrieved

December 9, 2021 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38886496).