Hate crimes are a despicable action that are used to brand and humiliate certain bodies of people. Recently I was reading the Thousand Oaks Acorn and came across an article about high school students placing swastikas on the locker of a Jewish middle schooler.

I was enraged and disgusted with this action, myself being a high school student. Even in quiet Thousand Oaks, hate crimes are committed.

These individuals need to be taught a lesson about their actions and should be severely punished.

My blood boils just at the thought of the nerve of these people.

In Germany it's a federal offense to show any Nazi-related item. Germans take a dim view of such actions, and offenders are severely punished with long-term jail sentences.

This dastardly event makes me furious, and I hope these persons are brought to justice and shown the full meaning of their crime.

I hope that maybe we could have a discussion in class one day about hate crimes and their effect on society. Oren Rosen Thousand Oaks

Oren is a 14-year-old student at Los Angeles Hebrew High School.