I am not convinced that hate crime legislation amounts to unconstitutional Orwellian punishment of "thoughtcrime."(Not that I wouldn't try and argue that to a jury, should the need arise.)
Hate crime laws punish discriminatory conduct, not offensive thoughts.
I do still have some objections to hate crime laws, however, and I would be very interested to hear opinions on these objections or on any other aspect of hate crime prosecution.
Hate Crime Legislation is a Form of Affirmative Action
Hate crime laws are intended to recognize the fear instilled within a class of people when bias-motivated crimes are committed against members of that class. This is done by imposing additional penalties intended to provide a greater deterrent than for the "hateless" version of the same crime. The end result is that blacks and homosexuals are provided special "protection of the law" from racist or antigay crime. Why should little old ladies receive less protection from crimes committed against them because of their frailty. Why are children less worthy of special protection from harm?
Isn't this affirmative action? A little "extra" government help intended to redress the oppression and victimization of blacks, etc?
The California Law is Poorly Drafted
The California hate crime statutes do not require bias against the victim as a necessary element, only that the crime be committed, in whole or in part, "because of one or more" of certain listed actual or perceived characteristics of the "victim," including disability, gender, race, religion and sexual orientiation.
What then of the opportunistic robber who steals from a blind man to avoid identification? The crime was certainly committed, at least in part, because of the disability of the victim. But the robber has no animosity toward blind people.
And what about the neo-nazi who spray paints a swastika on a bus shelter directly across the street from a jewish community center? The victim of the vandalism is the bus company. The perpetrator likely did not know or care about the any of the "characteristics" of the bus company, only those of the many jewish "non-victims" to whom the content of the graffiti was directed.
Gender is a listed characteristic. Is all heterosexual rape and domestic violence hate crime because it is committed "because of" the victim's gender? If so, then why should the bisexual "equal opportunity" rapist be punished less severely than the heterosexual rapist?
Hate Crime Laws Are Unduly Alarmist
Proponents of hate crime laws like to tell us about the under-reported epidemic of hate crime. The truth of the matter is that in California last year, there were 1,409 reported hate crimes, but only 139 convictions. Assuming that far fewer than 90 percent of the perpetrators eluded capture, these figures would seem to indicate over-reporting of hate crimes.
posted by brainmarket @ 7:51 AM
7 Comments:
Rape is a hate crime most commonly perpetrated against women. Child molestation is hate crime against children AND the parents of children, robbery of a girl working the grave yard shift is a hate crime, abuse and/or robbery of the elderly, stealing pearls from the rich: the list goes on...
All these "victims" were picked for their race, gender, age, social status, etc. What exactly is the question you are asking in this post, brain?
Well, nim, the list of "characteristics" does not include age or social status, but it does include gender.
If you choose a victim because of a characteristic that is not on the list, then the crime is not legally a hate crime.
Generally, the question I am asking in this post is what do people have to say about hate crimes.
I think the language of the law is clumsy, as I think about most laws, hence people are still debating about the Second Amendment "The right to bear arms". It seems as though these things classified as hate crimes were picked arbitrarily, and can be extended out to other areas or classifications of people. Calling something a "hate crime" gives us a false sense of what it is according to the law.
When a man kills his wife because he didnt want to divorce and share half of "his" wealth, he was surely motivated by hate. When we beat someone up so badly he dies for the 20 dollars in his wallet, one was motivated by the hate in his heart. That's why I have trouble with this law. It makes the lives of gays or blacks seem more valuable than the lives of others.
The most valuable lives SHOULD be, IMHO, the lives of children and crimes against them should carry very heavy sentences.
Is that a mother speaking though?
This takes me back to how good code is implemented when programming. We see some code that can be re-used for another task so we alter it to make it generic enough to fit enabling us to apply that code to more situations.
Unfortunately more modern laws seem to follow the same design pattern; lets make it generic enough to be used in whatever situation we deem fit. The illusion is - it deters people from committing hate crimes because of the heavier sentence thus settling society down over racial / homophobic attacks. They will still happen, and I'm not sure there are any figures to prove that, since the invokation of hate crimes, criminals have been detered.
Finally with any piece of generic coding, you will find flaws in the implementation because it does not suit one specific purpose. Hence, people will struggling to implement a generic law.
Laws have to be generic to a degree, power can't be that available to law makers and/or enforcers. Often times at sentencing the specific details of a crime are taken into account, but not when crimes are being alleged in the beginning. The population is just too big and would totally overwhelm our court system to not have some "generic" laws.
I agree, though, that I'm not sure something being classified as a hate crime acts as any more of a deterrent than it being a regular crime. People that are evil enough to pick a victim bexause of their race are evil enough to commit many crimes. They obviously don't care about breaking an initial battery law, let alone worried about it being a hate crime.
not yet, pirate
the prelim resumes next friday
Hate is interpretive and subjective. The term hate is defined as an extreme dislike to the point of avoidance. Which is an oxymoron. If these are truly hate crimes, why are they around the victims?
These are simply crimes of violence and the perps should be penalized.
In the ever PC world, we have begun to pander to the individuals who are differenct out of fear and isolationism.
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