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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hate Crime
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Someone on the Islam And Violence thread has already referred to the recent shooting of three Muslims by a militant atheist.
It is already being referred to as a “hate crime”, a term which I find problematical.
If someone deliberately murders someone else, what difference should it make whether, as in this case:-
a. he murdered them because he hates religious
people in general
b. he murdered them because he hates Muslims in
particular
c. he murdered them out of hatred engendered by a
parking dispute (which apparently was the
catalyst)
d. all of the above
e. he murdered them for some motive that did not
involve hatred at all, eg some sort of
pathological but objective curiosity about the
close-up effects of gunshots on a human
body, or a desire for notoriety
As I am a Christian, possibly he would hate me also if he knew me, but that is not illegal.
If he did try to murder me, I can’t see why that hatred means he should be described or treated any differently than if he tried to murder me because he believed I was having an affair with his wife, or simply because my appearance and manner got up his nose.
It is not a matter of distinguishing who I am from what I do, because my Christianity, while it subjectively defines me, remains ultimately something that I choose to “do’, ie believe and practise, and which I could choose not to.
And even if someone murders someone for something they can’t help, eg being Jewish or black, why is that worse than killing them for any other reason (except justifiable self-defence)?
The murder is still immoral and illegal, and they are just as dead.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Maybe it's more about keeping society safe? it's a horror when anyone is murdered. But when someone is killed only because they are of a particular group, that can spark further murders and crimes. So it needs to be headed off at the pass.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
I would guess hate laws are a very effective deterrent in stopping crazy, hate filled people from committing crimes.
Posts: 3684 | Registered: Aug 2002
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
When people are murdered because they live in a city where the population as a whole hates them for being part of some category, and where the authorities share the same attitude so that the murders go unpunished and therefore unchecked, a federal hate crime law allows the country as a whole to say that it's unacceptable. It's an important tool in rooting out institutionalized hate - think lynch mobs with no repercussions for the perpetrators.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If someone deliberately murders someone else, what difference should it make whether, as in this case:-
If you murder someone for looking at a white woman or walking down the wrong street or arguing over parking, you're not only killing one person; you're also sending a message to everyone else of the same ethnic group warning them not to look at white women or walk down the wrong street or argue over parking.
Murdering somebody over some personal matter is personal. Murdering somebody as a hate crime is intended to intimidate every member of the group you hate.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
And as Golden Key says the latter is likely more dangerous to society, and so it makes sense for society to want to have a particularly well-honed response.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And as Golden Key says the latter is likely more dangerous to society, and so it makes sense for society to want to have a particularly well-honed response.
It may be good to have "Hate crime" legislation, but I'm not sure how enforceable it is. In addition to proving some crime to the satisfaction of a jury, a case must be made that it was caused by or is to encourage hate of some kind.
Evidence of murder, assault and the like is easy to come by compared to evidence of hate, about which a jury is far less likely to agree.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Sadly, if you're going to be murdered, you're more likely to be murdered by a close relative. There is a sort of sense in which murdering someone to whom one is not related, whether for criminal or ideological reasons, makes the crime worse.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
That ain't necessarily so.
In France at least, being a relative can expose you to a higher sentence, the argument being, I think, that your proximity to the victim places greater responsibilities towards them on you, and the crime represents a greater breach of trust.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It may be good to have "Hate crime" legislation, but I'm not sure how enforceable it is. In addition to proving some crime to the satisfaction of a jury, a case must be made that it was caused by or is to encourage hate of some kind.
Evidence of murder, assault and the like is easy to come by compared to evidence of hate, about which a jury is far less likely to agree.
I'm not sure that's the case. You seem to be arguing that it's "easy" for a jury to distinguish murder from manslaughter or negligent homicide, distinctions which largely rest on the accused's state of mind, but find it much harder to determine a state of mind like "hatred". This does not seem immediately obvious.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Hate crimes are punished more severely 'cause the doer means to intimidate a group, and because, in targeting someone at random based on their membership of said group, it's particularly callous.
If murder can be aggravated by factors like premeditation and savagery, don't see a problem with this. Heck, the underlying logic's been a feature of the law for centuries: cop killing's automatically murder one.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
The notion that declaring some category of crimes as hate crimes and giving such offenders harsher sentences seems to derive from either the concept of deterrence or the concept of vengeance. I don't think either of those works well. Deterrence doesn't work because no one ever expects to be caught, and vengeance is a poor basis for justice.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Does that go for all aggravating factors? If not, why not?
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Retribution? Deterrence obviously does work though, otherwise petty theft would be rife. As the UK riots show as soon as people think they can get away with looting lots succumb to temptation.
Also I think the categorization helps the police and prosecution services target resources.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The CPS seems to be making a go of it. I'm sure they wouldn't describe it as "easy" but then it isn't supposed to be.
From the figures cited in that link, a success rate of 83% in prosecutions taken forward sounds pretty good. I suppose the question that comes next is to ask what proportion of crimes get taken to the prosecution stage?
A subsidiary issue is to ask whether all crimes against the elderly and the disabled are strictly hate crimes? Despicable certainly, but hateful or opportunistic?
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
The notion that declaring some category of crimes as hate crimes and giving such offenders harsher sentences seems to derive from either the concept of deterrence or the concept of vengeance. I don't think either of those works well. Deterrence doesn't work because no one ever expects to be caught, and vengeance is a poor basis for justice.
Given the state of criminal injustice system, the idea that any large number of generally reasonable people support thoughtcrimes terrifies me.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Hate crimes aren't "thought crimes," they're aggravating factors to an overt criminal act. Most crimes have a mental element (mens rea, guilty mind), and criminals have long been punished more harshly for things like premeditation, or less harshly if they're provoked. This is no different.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
I would guess hate laws are a very effective deterrent in stopping crazy, hate filled people from committing crimes.
Assuming that by "crazy" you mean "mentally ill," I'm not sure that's true.
WRT hate crimes themselves, it does bother me that the result is the criminalization of certain thoughts or beliefs. We don't seek to jail or otherwise punish people who publish racist or sexist books, or who say racist or sexist things. How exactly does a (putative) racist or sexist motive make an act of murder more heinous? Does the fact that a murderer was known to have racist beliefs automatically prove that his murder of a black man was a hate crime, or are further tests required to conclusively demonstrate that motive?
For me the questions keep multiplying. I agree that crimes committed out of racial (etc.) hatred are appalling. I'm just not sure I can say that murdering someone because she was a woman is necessarily worse than murdering her because she played her stereo too loud late at night.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Fr Weber, no one's being punished for racist thoughts: they're being punished for committing a violent act out of a racist motive, just as they're punished more harshly if they murder someone 'cause they want to rob them than they would be if they murder someone in the heat of the moment.
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Hate crimes aren't "thought crimes," they're aggravating factors to an overt criminal act. Most crimes have a mental element (mens rea, guilty mind), and criminals have long been punished more harshly for things like premeditation, or less harshly if they're provoked. This is no different.
And yet:
quote:
"Hate crime" generally refers to criminal acts that are seen to have been motivated by bias against one or more of the types above, or of their derivatives. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters (hate mail).
Given that I've been told in all seriousness that "that dress is gorgeous and looks really nice on you" is an insult and I've heard kids complain about bullying when another kid refuses to play the game they want to play, I find this trend towards restricting speech on the basis of whether or not someone felt offended by something worrying.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
If the person in this instance was a Sunni Muslim and the victims were Shiite Muslims, would that be hate crime if the killings happened because the killer did so out of sectarian hatred? Or is that getting too fine grained for the state to discern what is "hate" and what is just plain old sociopathic behavior?
I am quite curious where the evidence is that hate crime acts as an effective deterrent to violent crime.
quote:
When people are murdered because they live in a city where the population as a whole hates them for being part of some category, and where the authorities share the same attitude so that the murders go unpunished and therefore unchecked, a federal hate crime law allows the country as a whole to say that it's unacceptable. It's an important tool in rooting out institutionalized hate - think lynch mobs with no repercussions for the perpetrators.
Without hate crime laws the authorities would be powerless to stop this scenario? When have hate crime laws actually been used in the circumstances you're describing? It was not in the era of lynchings in this country.
[ 12. February 2015, 22:39: Message edited by: Alt Wally ]
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Saysay, hate speech, and hate crimes, are different things: hate speech is speech that causes people to hate X group; a hate crime is an act motivated by hatred of X group.
I'm not in favor of banning or restricting hate speech. I don't think speech should be restricted on the grounds that it may cause offense.
Hate crimes are a separate issue, an aggravating factor for acts that are already crimes. It's mainly about sentencing.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
I'm not in favor of banning or restricting hate speech. I don't think speech should be restricted on the grounds that it may cause offense.
I'll just note that restricting speech on the grounds that it may cause people to hate group X may or may not be justifiable, but it is quite a different thing from restricting speech on the grounds that it may cause members of group X offense.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
Xpost: This was to Byron.
Are you in law school or something? You seem to have a very detailed knowledge of the law in theory and no understanding of how it plays out in practice.
[ 12. February 2015, 22:43: Message edited by: saysay ]
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I'm just not sure I can say that murdering someone because she was a woman is necessarily worse than murdering her because she played her stereo too loud late at night.
As has been said, murdering someone because she's a woman is part of a systematic pattern of behaviour by misogynists that makes all women nervous about walking down certain streets late at night, and so on. In some sense therefore, the woman who is actually killed is not the only victim; all women who modify their behaviour out of fear of being next are in some sense victims.
There isn't a systematic pattern of behaviour that makes people who play stereos too loud late at night afraid to engage in certain activities. And in so far as there is, society thinks that people can opt out of the group of people who play stereos too loud late at night and therefore the risk of murderous neighbours is borne voluntarily.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Teufelchen
Shipmate
# 10158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Xpost: This was to Byron.
Are you in law school or something? You seem to have a very detailed knowledge of the law in theory and no understanding of how it plays out in practice.
Do you think aggravating and mitigating factors, including but not limited to 'hate crime' issues, are not applied in practice?
t
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Little devil
Posts: 3894 | From: London area | Registered: Aug 2005
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teufelchen:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Xpost: This was to Byron.
Are you in law school or something? You seem to have a very detailed knowledge of the law in theory and no understanding of how it plays out in practice.
Do you think aggravating and mitigating factors, including but not limited to 'hate crime' issues, are not applied in practice?
t
No, I don't. I can't speak to your country, but in the US more than 93% of charges result in plea bargains. Frequently brought on as a result of prosecutors overcharging. Hate crime legislation (no matter how well intentioned) is simply another tool in the hands of the wealthy and powerful that allows them to keep the school to prison pipeline functioning effectively.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Alt Wally
Cardinal Ximinez
# 3245
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Posted
On the topic of crime of passion vs. premeditation. Our understanding of the brain is likely going to cause a re-evaluation of how figure what the source of violence is and what the risk is of it happening again. The traditional sense of assigning guilt and culpability, may not line up with how much a risk an individual actually poses.
Even the distinction of these two categories has one critical commonality. The standards applied in both in determining guilt are not affected by any categorical status of the perpetrator or the victim. There is constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law. Hate crime is a form of premeditation that explicitly denies equal protection. That is the whole point as has been noted above in its "enhanced nature".
Posts: 3684 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
The notion that declaring some category of crimes as hate crimes and giving such offenders harsher sentences seems to derive from either the concept of deterrence or the concept of vengeance. I don't think either of those works well. Deterrence doesn't work because no one ever expects to be caught, and vengeance is a poor basis for justice.
Deterrence is not the point of punishment, whether it works or not.
As C.S. Lewis argued (in his The Humanitarian Theory Of Punishment), if deterrence is all that matters, then there would be nothing wrong with executing someone who had not actually committed the crime, as long as the judicial system could convince everyone else that they had.
Deterrence, along with rehabilitation and prevention of re-offending, are merely possible by-products of punishment.
Punishment per se is about desert and retribution, which is not the same as vengeance.
FWIW, I believe that Israel was justified in executing Adolf Eichmann in 1962, but I am not Jewish, and no-one I know personally was affected by Eichmann, so my attitude has nothing to do with revenge, and everything to do with justice.
The case of Eichmann is also relevant to the hate crime issue.
While Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” thesis (that Eichmann was just a robotic bureaucrat trying to do as efficient a job as possible to please his superiors) might be something of an overstatement, it remains true that there is very little evidence that he was motivated by any sort of passionate anti-Semitism.
However, it would be difficult to argue that his actions were somehow less horrific and culpable because they were not a “hate crime” in the strict sense of the term.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
A hate crime is, in essence, terrorism. An effort to cow a group of people using terror. Burning crosses on lawns is a good example of how a hate crime is terrorism. Get those blacks to move out of the neighborhood, or at least stop looking at white women. Pure terrorism.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I'm just not sure I can say that murdering someone because she was a woman is necessarily worse than murdering her because she played her stereo too loud late at night.
The rationale is basically this:
Being a woman is about who you are. It applies to 50% of the population and is intrinsic.
Playing your stereo too loud is something you do. It's not intrinsic, it's an individual action. It has no direct implication for anyone else.
Whether you agree with the rationale or not is up to you, but the basic notion behind laws on 'hate crime' is that targeting people for who they ARE - for membership of an intrinsic group - is a serious problem, and different in some ways from the way that individuals interact with each other as individuals.
The biggest issue I see is that a tendency develops to assume that a member of a group is always targeted because of their membership of the group. Any time a gay person is attacked, it's a gay bashing. When a black person is killed by a white person, it must be because of race.
And in this case, I did notice how quick it became a case about the death of Muslims, not about a parking space dispute between individuals. It's not axiomatic/automatic that this guy couldn't have had an equally toxic dispute over something as petty as a parking space if the dispute had been with a Christian or atheist neighbour instead of a Muslim one.
Criticisms that a Muslim attacker would have been instantly broadcast through the media as a Muslim terrorist are accurate, but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Something should only be labelled as a hate crime if there's actual evidence that membership of the targeted group was the motivation.
[ 13. February 2015, 05:47: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
I would guess hate laws are a very effective deterrent in stopping crazy, hate filled people from committing crimes.
Do you think laws against murder, including capital punishment are a very effective deterrent in stopping people from committing murder?
Hate crimes are a multiplier given for an implicit conspiracy of multiple actors and for the intent to intimidate entire groups. If you don't like that, check out the United States RICO statutes for draconian actions. They were motivated to cope with gangs that would intimidate or murder witnesses and judges. All of this in the United States comes in response to a long history of unfair treatment of the protected groups.
As was pointed out earlier in the thread, some of the conspiracy includes local law enforcement. The hate crimes multiplier, like the multiplier for intent require judging the purpose of actions. We expect courts to be able to do so.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
Saysay, in focusing on systemic abuses, you've set aside the merits of hate crimes as a concept.
And about that, d'you have any evidence that prosecutors at a federal level & in a majority of states are using trumped up hate crime enhancements to leverage pleas from falsely accused persons? If do, can we please see it.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Deterrence is not the point of punishment, whether it works or not.
As C.S. Lewis argued (in his The Humanitarian Theory Of Punishment), if deterrence is all that matters, then there would be nothing wrong with executing someone who had not actually committed the crime, as long as the judicial system could convince everyone else that they had.
There is a difference between arguing that deterrence is not sufficient to justify punishment, and arguing that deterrence is not relevant. From the claim that deterrence is not a sufficient consideration, it doesn't follow either that retribution is a sufficient consideration, nor that deterrence may not justify aggravating punishment. It seems to me that the retributive effect opens the possibility of concrete penalties for deterrent or restorative ends, but does not of itself warrant the infliction of concrete penalties.
quote:
The case of Eichmann is also relevant to the hate crime issue.
While Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” thesis (that Eichmann was just a robotic bureaucrat trying to do as efficient a job as possible to please his superiors) might be something of an overstatement, it remains true that there is very little evidence that he was motivated by any sort of passionate anti-Semitism.
Hate crime is a functionalist description. It's not about the interior psychological state of the perpetrator: it is about the practical outworkings of widely held attitudes. If a member of the same hated group as the victim reasonably believes that they would be treated the same way as the victim under the same circumstances (and that other members of the perpetrators' group would not) then it's a hate crime.
Interior psychological states are not of much interest to anyone else. It is when they manifest as action that they become important.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Teufelchen:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Xpost: This was to Byron.
Are you in law school or something? You seem to have a very detailed knowledge of the law in theory and no understanding of how it plays out in practice.
Do you think aggravating and mitigating factors, including but not limited to 'hate crime' issues, are not applied in practice?
t
No, I don't. I can't speak to your country, but in the US more than 93% of charges result in plea bargains. Frequently brought on as a result of prosecutors overcharging. Hate crime legislation (no matter how well intentioned) is simply another tool in the hands of the wealthy and powerful that allows them to keep the school to prison pipeline functioning effectively.
Which is a sign that your criminal justice system is broken. It doesn't mean that the category of 'hate crime' serves no usual purpose per se.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Quite. The logical extension of that argument is to take away all power to prosecute from the state.
Of course there is no scientific evidence that hate crime legislation works. That is also the case for most elements of the justice system.
The argument for hate crime legislation is that, as orfeo describes, a society takes a view that particular prejudices driving violent crime are especially pernicious and need particular attention given to fighting them.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
orfeo: quote:
And in this case, I did notice how quick it became a case about the death of Muslims, not about a parking space dispute between individuals. It's not axiomatic/automatic that this guy couldn't have had an equally toxic dispute over something as petty as a parking space if the dispute had been with a Christian or atheist neighbour instead of a Muslim one.
It sounds as if he objected to anyone parking in the space that he thought of as his, and was in the habit of going out to remonstrate with his gun. But the only people he actually went as far as shooting were Muslims; and he didn't just pull out his gun and start blazing away at random in the heat of the moment, he followed them into their apartment and shot all three of them in the head.
I don't know what that proves one way or the other, but if I lived in that apartment block I'd be terrified of encountering any of my neighbours, armed or not.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I think hate crime legislation in the UK has been a big part of changing attitudes. It's not about the prosecutions themselves as about the message sent by the law itself. Criminalising the incitement of racial hatred (which is actually fairly narrowly defined so that even the BNP manage to avoid it most of the time) has sent a clear signal that racism is Not OK. Law can, in many cases, guide behaviour without being enforced. We've seen that negatively in the UK with Section 28, and more positively as I've outlined above.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Teufelchen
Shipmate
# 10158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A hate crime is, in essence, terrorism. An effort to cow a group of people using terror. Burning crosses on lawns is a good example of how a hate crime is terrorism. Get those blacks to move out of the neighborhood, or at least stop looking at white women. Pure terrorism.
*applause*
t
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Little devil
Posts: 3894 | From: London area | Registered: Aug 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
Even the distinction of these two categories has one critical commonality. The standards applied in both in determining guilt are not affected by any categorical status of the perpetrator or the victim. There is constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law. Hate crime is a form of premeditation that explicitly denies equal protection. That is the whole point as has been noted above in its "enhanced nature".
It's been remarked that to white folks, race is something other people have. I think the kind of flawed and false analysis Alt Wally puts forward comes from the same general sentiment. It conflates the observation "people of my race/religion/sexual orientation are rarely, if ever, assaulted or murdered because of their race/religion/sexual orientation" with the false notion "therefore this law only applies to these other people".
To take a not entirely at random example, gay bashing still falls under the rubric of hate crime law even if the person bashed was actually straight. What matters is the motives of the perpetrator, not the categorical status of either party.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Of course there is no scientific evidence that hate crime legislation works. That is also the case for most elements of the justice system.
The argument for hate crime legislation is that, as orfeo describes, a society takes a view that particular prejudices driving violent crime are especially pernicious and need particular attention given to fighting them.
Isn't that argument fairly widely accepted in virtually every other form of state enforcement. Questions of deterrence or vengeance are equally applicable to why most governments apply different penalties to premeditated murder than they do to parking violations. If that's a bar to differential sentencing for bias-motivated crimes, it's a bar to differential sentencing for any crime.
[ 13. February 2015, 13:53: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
Our understanding of the brain is likely going to cause a re-evaluation of how figure what the source of violence is and what the risk is of it happening again.
Do you mean in terms of neurophysiology? If so I think such an understanding is a very long way away. The imaging and biochemical tests available have way too low a resolution to do anything so subtle.
Or do you mean in terms of the model one has to explain it?
Either way it may be that in terms of the societal risk one still gives hate crimes a particular focus, not simply because the perpetrators may be higher risk, but the risk of the crime impacting the rest of society and leading to further polarization is higher.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Hate crime laws are meant to deal with specific patterns of crime.
Various people on this board have asked that something be done about the anti-Christian violence that occurs in several Islamic countries. Note they did not ask for action on generic violence against both Christians and Muslims in those countries. They wanted remedies for a specific pattern of violence, one that has frequently been tolerated or even approved by law enforcement in that country.
Generalizing the problem into "all violence" makes any attempts at solution ineffective.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
Hate crime is a form of premeditation that explicitly denies equal protection. That is the whole point as has been noted above in its "enhanced nature".
Does your definition of "hate crime" imply premeditation ? Is it not possible in a fit of rage to kill someone from a group that you despise, with their status forming part of the motivation but without prior intention to do so ?
Premeditation is tied up with rationality. If I kill you cold-bloodedly, reasoning to gain personal advantage thereby, that's normally considered more evil than killing you in a fit if temper. But the sort of prejudice (against gays or blacks for example) that underpins many instances of what are called "hate crimes" seems basically irrational. Such a murder seems like the same sort of giving in to irrational urges as the "fit of temper" case.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Hate crime laws are meant to deal with specific patterns of crime.
Various people on this board have asked that something be done about the anti-Christian violence that occurs in several Islamic countries. Note they did not ask for action on generic violence against both Christians and Muslims in those countries. They wanted remedies for a specific pattern of violence, one that has frequently been tolerated or even approved by law enforcement in that country.
Generalizing the problem into "all violence" makes any attempts at solution ineffective.
Excellent point.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Interior psychological states are not of much interest to anyone else. It is when they manifest as action that they become important.
In the case I referred to in the OP, those who try him will probably try to work out whether his “interior psychological state” consisted of a hatred for religious people in general, and that the three young people he shot were simply representatives of that group, in which case they will call it a "hate crime"; or whether he shot three young people, regardless of their religiosity or lack thereof, merely because they had annoyed him over a parking space.
The point is, that the latter is as bad as the former, but just doesn’t have a label (“pissed-off crime”?)
It is equally evil and irrational to think you have the right to arbitrarily shoot anyone who crosses you, as it is to think you have the right to arbitrarily shoot anyone whose faith you don’t like.
In Eichmann’s case, his culpability lies in the fact that he was complicit in the mass murder of innocent human beings by going along with a system which was doing just that.
Whether or not it was a “hate crime” on the part of those for whom he worked has no relevance to his personal guilt.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Kaplan Corday, I do have a lot of sympathy with your view.
I tend to think in this case that the man is likely to get locked away for life no matter what. However, that made me realise something else: we do, in fact, take into account all sorts of aspects of a crime in sentencing. It isn't the case - at least, in countries that inherited their system from the English system - that there's a single, uniform sentence for murder.
We don't treat all these crimes as equally wicked, in other words. When it comes to guilt, murder is murder, but when it comes to punishment, we distinguish between murderers all the time.
[ 14. February 2015, 06:10: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Interior psychological states are not of much interest to anyone else. It is when they manifest as action that they become important.
In the case I referred to in the OP, those who try him will probably try to work out whether his “interior psychological state” consisted of a hatred for religious people in general, and that the three young people he shot were simply representatives of that group, in which case they will call it a "hate crime"; or whether he shot three young people, regardless of their religiosity or lack thereof, merely because they had annoyed him over a parking space.
We do not have access to any interior psychological state. Arguably the man doesn't have infallible access either.
What we do have access to is patterns of behaviour that reveal motive, disposition, and intention. (If, for example, he ranted about Muslims on a anti-religious atheist message board.) In addition, we have patterns of social expectation created by society about the ways in which Muslims can expect to be treated and regarded. Possibly the jury might try to infer from those an interior psychological state, but that is an unnecessary final step.
(A sidestep into twentieth-century philosophy: we couldn't even talk about interior psychological states unless they have some consistent manifestation in motive, disposition, and intention. If they didn't there would be no way to identify them for the person experiencing them.)
quote:
It is equally evil and irrational to think you have the right to arbitrarily shoot anyone who crosses you, as it is to think you have the right to arbitrarily shoot anyone whose faith you don’t like.
I have already said why I disagree.
quote:
In Eichmann’s case, his culpability lies in the fact that he was complicit in the mass murder of innocent human beings by going along with a system which was doing just that.
Whether or not it was a “hate crime” on the part of those for whom he worked has no relevance to his personal guilt.
I have already said why I disagree as have others. In fact, we've already said that the complicity with a wider pattern of behaviour is the aggravating factor in hate crime. If complicity is culpable then hate crime is more culpable than personal crime (all things being equal).
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Which is a sign that your criminal justice system is broken. It doesn't mean that the category of 'hate crime' serves no usual purpose per se.
Please note that saysay has yet to produce any evidence of American prosecutors fabricating hate crime enhancements, let alone show that this fraud on the court is endemic.
All criminal complaints in the U.S. require the prosecutor to show probable cause. This is done in various ways, typically before a grand jury, or in a preliminary hearing before a judge. They're far from perfect, but they don't give prosecutors license to invent evidence. Any prosecutor caught doing that (it has happened on occasion) loses their immunity from suit.
"Overcharging" is really a misnomer. It doesn't mean there's no PC for the charges; it means the prosecutor initially pursues a harsher penalty than the one they believe is most appropriate, in order to leverage a plea bargain. Since the evidence does support the harsher penalty, the plea bargain's in effect a discount for saving the state the expense of a trial.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Mar 2010
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