Hate crime: is it or isn't it?

Well, what if they found out tomorrow that Torres, while guilty, is married to a Muslim? Then it'd be okay to beat the life out of someone with a bat because it wasn't hate of their religion, or culture. Just the fact that Torres is a freaking lunatic.

Oh wait, it's still a crime, and that wouldn't make Nabra's family feel better?

So yeah, put me in the column of hate crime laws being wrongheaded. The idea that a person may have committed an act out of hatred towards ______ Fill in the blank reason. Religion, culture, race, political affiliation. It can serve as a motive to prove it, but even then, you can run into problems.

Person A killed Person B because Person A hates Person B's whatever.

How do you know he killed him?

Because he hates his whatever.

How do you know he hates the whatever?

Because he killed him.

Prove the crime, and if hate of the whatever factors in, fine, but that shouldn't make it a crime.

It's interesting how those most skeptical of hate crime laws seemingly don't understand why they exist. Here's two reasons why they do. Matthew Shepard and James Byrd.



Conservatives enjoy squawking like wet chickens over how hate crimes laws are unnecessary, but then, they aren't the ones most in need of the protection of these laws. As to their worth, a noted victim of a hate crime, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

Hate crime laws aren't "identity politics." They're a legal response to crimes directed against people because they identify as Black or Muslim or gay. It's not about making a "disadvantaged" group feel like the System feels their pain. It's about making a victimized group feel like they won't be abandoned by the System. It's about making sure there's justice for targeting a gay youth the way Matthew Shepard was when he pistol-whipped 18 times, tied to a fence and set on fire. It's about making sure there's justice for targeting a Black man the way James Byrd was when he was chained to the back of a pickup truck, and dragged two miles down a road until his arm and head were torn from his body.

If you can't understand why the hunting of humans for something they can't control or change is particularly vile, hate crimes aren't your problem, but something else may be.

Or blue.

If someone viciously murders someone else, they should be charged for that crime. And hopefully found guilty if they are guilty. How does adding a additional charge in some cases only, because of the victim's identity, make sure there's justice?

This is a bad faith argument (the usual insinuation that people who have different opinions are motivated by racism), but I will actually steelman the pro-hate crimes argument here for you. Your problem is that you aren't making the correct argument for hate crimes - it's not because killing someone because of their identity is "particularly vile" (if I were hunting humans because of something they could control or change - say, because they are Democrats, or because they are Cowboys fans, would that be less vile?).

I'll help you out.

First, we already have "enhancements" for crimes of violence. Premeditated murder is First Degree murder, whereas killing someone accidentally during a fight is some lesser degree, or manslaughter - even though the victim is just as dead in either case. If you kill someone after raping or torturing them, it's likely to be "Murder with Special Circumstances," and a capital charge in some states. So we have plenty of legal precedent for declaring that some murders are "worse" than others.

The reason goes back to the motivation that we would like to deter. And historically, violent acts against minority groups have been organized, or at least socially approved, acts of intimidation. An environment in which blacks can be lynched or gays can be beaten served to oppress those groups.

The argument against hate crimes legislation is that lynching and beating is already illegal, and the solution was to start enforcing those laws equally. Which is only partially true. The solution also required a systemic, institutional response to make it clear that minority groups were no longer "fair game" and that any attacks targeting them would be given special scrutiny and prosecuted with extra zeal.

The mistake of a lot of hate crimes proponents is the mistake you are making - essentially arguing that killing some people is worse than others. That some lives are more valuable than others, that some deaths are more tragic. That is when identity politics obscure the issue of whether hate crimes actually serve their intended purpose.

I'm always on the fence when it comes to whether I think "hate crime laws" are necessary.

One part of me views it probably a bit too rationally and thinks that "the penalty for assault/murder should be the same no matter the immutable characteristic of the perpetrator or victim. Killing someone because they slept with your wife should get punished the same as killing someone because of their race."

But another part of me agrees with everything that nighttimer quoted from the ADL. Killing someone because they slept with your wife can devastate a family. Killing someone because they're black/gay/etc. can devastate an entire community.

I do wince at the idea of hate crime laws sometimes, though, but mainly because I can see how they can be abused by prosecutors with an agenda. Much like when the cops pull someone over and catch them with weed and then slap on a bunch of other bullshit charges too just because they think they can. I can imagine hypothetical cases that could conceivably happen where the perpetrator belongs to one group and the victim belongs to another, so a knee-jerk assumption is made that group membership "had to" have played a role, even if it actually didn't, therefore a charge is filed.

So, I dunno. Even though I still struggle with where I stand on the issue, I fall more on the side of supporting hate crime laws in many cases, even though I also cringe a bit when I think of their potential negative implications.

where does a serial killer who targets, say, women of a certain age, build, and hair color fit in? hate crime or just crime crime?

eta:

if, as a one-off thing, he kills a tall, curvy blonde instead of a petite, waif-like brunette, is that different?

I agree that's a good argument for making hate crimes a separate category. Also, as Amadan notes, we do recognize enhancements of certain crimes depending on the victim.

I'm a bit on the fence -- I come out about where Opty does. I do see the arguments for hate crime enhancements and I don't dismiss them. On the other hand, as I've argued in other threads, is a crime worse depending on who commits it or who it is committed on? Can I (consistently) argue, as I do elsewhere, that the victim is harmed no more if the perp is an illegal alien than a citizen, and that therefore crimes committed by illegal aliens shouldn't be in a separate class -- and yet argue that the murder of a person of a particular race, gender or orientation is worse than the murder of another?