A special panel met with about 20 University of Wisconsin students Monday night to discuss hate crimes and their effect on the student body. They were brought together by the UW Think! Campaign to promote Social Justice Week on campus and hate crime awareness and prevention.

The panelists focused on hate crimes and how students are able to identify, report and understand them.

"A hate crime is motivated by a desire to do something because of the type of person being attacked," Madison Police Department Detective Alix Olson said. "If you have [been a victim of a hate crime], then you're aware what it did to people like you, people who love like you, think like you, pray like you."

Essentially such a person is a victim because of something he or she cannot change, Olson added.

According to UW Police Department Sgt. Jerome VanNatta, it is important for students to know that hate crimes are not necessarily acts that are criminal in nature.

Often, VanNatta said, the acts can be hate incidents or hate speech. He also said college life creates a dynamic between students that cause many hate incidents to occur, especially in the residence halls where students are in close situations with a diverse population.

He went on to describe the three types of hate offenders. "Thrill offenders" are generally associated with alcohol, or some spontaneous decision to act with hatred. "Mission offenders" are organized groups of people who have planned their attack, and he said "circumstantial offenders" act with hatred because of a current societal situation.

Another panelist, UW Associate Dean of Students Elton Crim, said UW hate crimes and incidents mostly come from thrill offenders and circumstantial offenders. Right now, he added, the most targeted students and faculty on campus are American Indians and those who associate themselves with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender organizations. The recent passing of the gay marriage and civil unions ban propelled the LGBT community into the target for hate crimes.

Interim Dean of Students Lori Berquam reminded students to take action against hate crimes.

"Do something," Berquam said. "That's the answer, do something."

Crim also spoke about the ways students are able to report hate crimes or incidents that happen on campus. The dean's office has an on-call dean to sit down with students available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., he said.

Berquam explained another way of reporting incidents. A newly created reporting system for bias incidents can accessed through an online form on the Dean of Students' Website that students can fill out if they witness or experience a hate incident.

And students can also meet with staff to talk about what happened, Berquam added. Unfortunately, like most hate crimes throughout the U.S., incidents on campus are rarely reported. Berquam said the office's reporting system has also sparked some concern surrounding possible free speech problems this system raises.

But VanNatta added students should always feel safe calling the police department first, and also said he has trained many officers to deal with hate crime issues and has confidence in their ability to help anyone who calls about something they have seen or experienced.

MPD Detective Jay Dahlen, another panelist, said it is important to remember hate incidents "can happen to anybody, anytime."

The UW administration and the MPD wanted students to be aware that they are there to help and listen to students, and to react to hate crimes because they affect the entire campus.