What's the deal with hate crime punishment?

10/18/2010

Why are hate motivated crimes punished with sentences that are harsher than the sentences given for other crimes?

Is stabbing someone multiple times somehow more admirable than shooting someone because of their race or sexual orientation?

16 Comments

Kelly

10/24/2010 05:02:15 am

Really, for someone with your "gift", this is a stupid thing to ponder. Try a google search.

Hate crimes are a special class of criminal charges differentiated by the intention behind the crime. A hate crime is motivated by bias towards ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Therefore it is considered a crime with broader effects for all of society.

Here is a summary of the reasoning by hate crime laws produced by the New York state legislature:
Hate crimes do more than threaten the safety and welfare of all citizens. They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society. Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups not only harm individual victims but send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. Hate crimes can and do intimidate and disrupt entire communities and vitiate the civility that is essential to healthy democratic processes. In a democratic society, citizens cannot be required to approve of the beliefs and practices of others, but must never commit criminal acts on account of them.

If you have cohesive argument against that rationale, that might be interesting. Pondering subjects already well covered by legal scholars is not profound.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/24/2010 06:51:25 am

I'm sorry that you feel it's a "stupid" thing for me to ponder.

I would think that sentences are doled out for two main reasons: punishment of the offender, and to deter potential future offenders.

Looking only at the punishment aspect of sentencing, should an offender be punished more if the intent behind the crime is hate of the victim's race rather than rage in general? In this respect, a hate crime overall may deserve greater sentencing, but that aspect of the sentencing would, I would think, fall under the deterrence aspect of sentencing, not the punishment aspect, because the idea is that race based hate crimes are especially egregious due to the potential that they could more easily occur in the future, and hence require more deterrence (they can more easily occur because one's race is easily visible, whereas other potential motivating triggers of crime, such as one's personality, aren't as visible)

As was implied by the only example I provided ("Is stabbing someone multiple times somehow more admirable than shooting someone because of their race or sexual orientation?") I was referring to the punishment component of sentencing, not the deterrence aspect. This is clear because I was referring to the mode of the crime itself, not the motivation. With the idea being that the punishment should be appropriate to the level of damage inflicted on the victim. Hence, the direct comparison between violent stabbing versus relatively less violent shooting. As mentioned earlier, the motivations behind the crime fall would fall under the deterrence aspect of sentencing,

However, because I wasn't clear enough in my first line ("Why are hate motivated crimes punished with sentences that are harsher than the sentences given for other crimes?"), I left it open to the possibility that I was referring to the deterrence aspect of sentencing and not just the punishment aspect. So, with the context of my one example that I provided, I was not incorrect, I just wasn’t clear enough.

I agree with the theme of the New York legislature summary you provided, in respect that the arguments favor greater deterrence. However, there are some problems with the summary. Some thoughts about that summary:

“They inflict on victims incalculable physical and emotional damage and tear at the very fabric of free society.” It is ABSURD to suggest that the physical damage that a victim of a hate crime incurs is greater than the physical damage incurred by a victim of the same crime committed with different intent. In fact, by definition, a hate crime differs only with other crimes by the intent, not the actual physical damage committed during the crime itself!

As for the emotional damage, yes, you could argue that hate crimes inflict greater damage on the victim because they realize the trigger of the crime could more easily occur again (versus non hate crimes) due to the greater visibility of the trigger (race, etc).

However, in order to believe that hate crime victims always suffer greater emotional damage is to suggest that there is no limit to emotional suffering, and here’s why: Without knowing about this field in depth, one could argue that there is a limit to emotional suffering as defined by the strength of the memory impression on the myelin in the brain (it was believed in the past, and perhaps still is currently, that the strength of memories may be determined by the force of the myelin impression). Perhaps a stabbing victim of a non hate crime has as great a myelin impression (and hence, potential emotional reaction) as a stabbing victim of a hate crime. Perhaps not. I don’t know. But the point is that it shouldn’t just be assumed that the emotional suffering of the victim of a hate crime is always greater than that of a non hate crime.

By the way, one weakness of hate crime legislation, if I understand it’s definitions correctly, is that it limits the definitions of victims to certain groups that are usually easily identifiable visibly, but excludes many other groups that could be victims (for example, wealthy people might be victims of hate crimes based on jealousy of their wealth, or based on past negative experiences with wealthy people).

In fact, negative experiences with a particular person could result in hate crime towards others who share the same traits, and hence are part of a group. Why should hate groups be defined only by easily visible characteristics?

Alice O. Nunez

10/26/2010 12:25:31 am

"As for the emotional damage, yes, you could argue that hate crimes inflict greater damage on the victim because they realize the trigger of the crime could more easily occur again (versus non hate crimes) due to the greater visibility of the trigger (race, etc)."

That's not even almost what Kelly was saying. Hate crimes generate emotional distress to society AS A WHOLE, not just to the victim. It threatens others in that class, saying, "you can't live here; even if the law says you can, we'll kill you anyway." Hate crimes are like terrorism in that regard, a threat to civilians that even if they live their lives in peace, being who they are, someone will come after them.

"Why should hate groups be defined only by easily visible characteristics?"

They're not. See religion and sexual orientation, for instance.

Finally, some people are uncomfortable with hate crimes because the sentencing requires knowledge of the attacker's intent. That's rubbish: so does the difference between murder and manslaughter, and I haven't heard anyone talk about abolishing murder charges.

Your experiment in autistically rationalizing political issues has a fatal flaw, in that it ignores everything social about the world. Because of that you get shallow posts like this one, which don't even attempt to understand the opposing side. You can't rebut something you don't understand.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 12:56:37 am

Alice,

I realize Kelly was suggesting that hate crimes create emotional problems for society as a whole. On a practical level, I simply disagree that the effect would be very noticeable.

A strong emotional experience tends to result from either direct involvement or involvement with someone you care about. The emotion occurs after an impression on the myelin in the brain.

If hate crimes were widespread enough, then I could see a non victim having an emotional reaction to a hate crime in their community. But significant hate crimes are rare, and hence, in practical terms, I don't think that the effects of hate crimes on the community are of note. Perhaps they would have been of note in the 1960s and earlier.

You claim that religion and sexual orientation are not easily visible characteristics. You are wrong. A large percentage of the time, they ARE visible (not always, but enough to consider them pretty visible).

Based on someone's ethnicity or race (which are both often discernible) Christians tend to be of West and South European background, Filipino background, among others.

Muslims tend to be of Arab, Indonesian, Pakistani descent, among others (some Caucacus regions tend to be Muslim also).

Muslims also tend to be noticeable in other ways: their manner of dress and grooming.

I could go on and on in regard to other religions.

Alice,

I realize Kelly was suggesting that hate crimes create emotional problems for society as a whole. On a practical level, I simply disagree that the effect would be very noticeable.

A strong emotional experience tends to result from either direct involvement or involvement with someone you care about. The emotion occurs after an impression on the myelin in the brain.

If hate crimes were widespread enough, then I could see a non-victim having an emotional reaction to a hate crime in their community.

But significant hate crimes are rare, and hence, in practical terms, I don't think that the effects of hate crimes on the community are worthwhile of consideration in terms of sentencing. Perhaps they would have been of note in the 1960s and earlier.

You claim that religion and sexual orientation are not easily visible characteristics. You are wrong. A large percentage of the time, they ARE visible (not always, but enough to consider them pretty visible).

Based on someone's ethnicity or race (which are both often discernible) Christians tend to be of West and South European background, Filipino background, among others.

Muslims tend to be of Arab, Indonesian, Pakistani descent, among others (some Caucacus regions tend to be Muslim also).

Muslims also tend to be noticeable in other ways: their manner of dress and grooming.

I could go on and on in regard to other religions.

You mention that some people are uncomfortable with the idea of determining the intent of the crime. I'm not uncomfortable with that. However, your argument is not foolproof. Just because you haven't heard anyone talk about abolishing certain murder charges due to difficulty in determining intent doesn't mean it wouldn’t be worthwhile to CONSIDER it.

Alice O. Nunez

10/26/2010 01:29:11 am

"But significant hate crimes are rare, and hence, in practical terms, I don't think that the effects of hate crimes on the community are of note."

Congratulations: You're full of privilege!

My gay and transgender friends are acutely aware of the prominence of hate crimes and the threats that they pose. Perhaps your profession of disbelieve in this emotional stress is related to your belonging outside each of the targeted classes? I don't know, of course, but that seems like a likely possibility.

Alice O. Nunez

10/26/2010 01:30:53 am

And by "disbelieve" I mean "disbelief", of course.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 01:55:02 am

I never said that some groups aren't made fun of or bullied. Please don't put words in my mouth. I said that significant hate crimes are rare. Making fun of someone for no valid reason is not a crime, however repugnant it may be.

By "significant", I'm referring to crimes that would have enough of an emotional toll to warrant increased sentencing, such as violent crimes. I think you'll find that violent hate crimes are very rare compared to other crimes.

Someone doesn't need to be a member of the hate legislated groups in order to understand being bullied or made fun of...there are many people who regularly suffer, such as loners at school, unpopular kids, etc.

Alice O. Nunez

10/26/2010 02:00:08 am

"I never said that some groups aren't made fun of or bullied."

No, but you did suggest that the emotional toll of violent hate crimes isn't "worthwhile of consideration". And I'm saying to you: I have transgender friends who live every day of their lives acutely aware of the fact that they can be assaulted for being who they are. I don't think living in constant fear is negligible.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 02:10:22 am

I believe you when you say that your transgender friends live in fear. And that's disheartening.

However, the original discussion was about hate crime legislation, which refers to the combination of all legislated groups(race, religion etc), not hate crimes against only the more bullied groups, like transgendered.

When I referred to the level of violent hate crime being low, I meant just that: that it's low overall among the many groups. This makes since, since the sample size would includes a small number of transgendered people relative to the number of, say, blacks.

If you want to look at transgender hate crimes instead of hate crimes as a whole, that could be worthwhile. At this point, I would not oppose increased sentencing for hate crimes against the specific group of transgendered people, because I could see that the rate of violent crime committed against them, and hence the emotional toll in their community, would likely be far greater than some other hate crime groups.

Mr. Clyde

10/26/2010 05:30:16 pm

Violent crime is significantly more common than violent hate crime.
You are correct.

The difference between the two in terms of punishment is the racial or generally intolerant origin of the motive to the violent hate crime.

Do you understand the basics of racism and intolerance to gays?

Do you think that government, designed in it's very basis to PROTECT THE PEOPLE, should not protect it's people from morally wrong violence through morally wrong thoughts?

I wonder about the world you live in.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/27/2010 12:07:56 am

Mr. Clyde,

I don't think you've read the whole thread. I already said that I think hate crimes should be punished by incrasing the deterrence aspect (but not the punishment aspect) of hate crimes.

supra footwear link

1/5/2011 04:02:38 pm

great post.

Robert Q.

1/24/2011 11:24:03 am

Hate crimes are wrong nonetheless for everything , whether it's race, sexuality, etc., but we shouldn't be arguing about the emotional stress of said person. These gays, bis, transggenders, muslims,etc., need to be able to come to Christ for their emotional needs to be met and lifted.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

1/24/2011 11:48:42 am

Robert Q.,

It's usually farcical of someone to assume Christ can help others. Most people have no good reason to believe that Christ exists (and no good reason to believe that if he does exist, he will help them).

You should not be suggesting these people come to Christ, unless you believe that the belief itself (regardless of whether God exists or not) will aid them.

Also, if you are suggesting these people should change because there is something wrong or unnatural about them, well, that's bizarre (in reference to gays, bis and transgenders).

However, you are correct if you believe that being Muslim is a negative. There is no doubt that it's negative to support a religion that includes a text that advocates violence against and avoidance of friendship with Christians and Jews. Regardless of whether someone believes in ALL aspects of the Koran, simply being a Muslim provides support for the text.

Myself, I am not religious at all, I am actually anti-religion. However, I believe God exists, for one reason only. Based on the evidence I've encountered, it would be improbable to believe he doesn't exist. I've had a series of bizarre personal experiences (some recorded), and I am a probability genius. I calculated the odds that these experiences could have happened by chance, and they were extremely low (below 1 in one trillion).

So, there is plenty of evidence for me to believe in God, yet likely very little evidence for the mast majority to believe in it.

Cheap Jordan Shoes link

2/24/2011 09:24:45 am

you can find what you want to in here,make your life full of color ,it's a perfect website.

Air Force 1 2011 link

5/15/2011 07:23:08 pm

Any holy book demonstrates that women helped bring sin together with fatality within the society, the fact that your sweetheart precipitated the fall of any rush, the fact that your sweetheart was initially arraigned leading to a verdict seating for Abode, used, condemned together with sentenced. Spousal relationship on her was initially in the form of circumstance for bondage, maternity a time having difficulties together with anguish, together with in silence together with subjection, your sweetheart was initially that will execute any job associated with a impacted by people's bounty for any your girlfriend content likes, together with those material your sweetheart may perhaps would like... This is the Holy book job for gal in short summed away.

What's the deal with hate crime punishment?

Leave a Reply.

Archives