The Pros And Cons Of Hate Crime Legislation

We have all heard people use the phrase “adding insult to injury” as a way of describing a bad situation being made worse. With respect to hate crimes, this phrase fits all too well. After doing research on hate crime legislation, I have come to realize that this commonly used phrase constitutes an almost literal translation of the word “hate crime”, in the sense that crimes are made worse when criminals add hate to their offense. The US Congress has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” While this definition may, at first glance, seem straightforward, I will demonstrate that hate

crime legislation is an extremely complex and challenging issue, with far reaching implications for our criminal justice system and for society in general. That society has to experience crime is bad enough, but crime motivated purely by hate exacerbates the immorality of crime, and therefore defines my perspective that hate crime legislation is necessary. While hate crime legislation is necessary, it is also important to address the ambiguities associated with hate crime legislation in order to develop clearly defined laws that effectively and fairly provide harsher punishment for morally worse hate crimes.
Proponents of hate crime legislation put forth a variety of reasons for endorsing it.

One such supporter, Michael Lieberman, attorney and representative of the Anti-Defamation League, illustrates some of the most compelling reasons in his article titled, “Hate Crime Laws: Punishment to Fit the Crime His first, and most obvious, is that many hate crimes would not even occur without personal bias. Accordingly, discouraging hate crimes by imposing harsher penalties for them should reduce crime rates in general. His second argument is that hate crimes can potentially cause public unrest and even riots, as seen very recently in Ferguson, Missouri. His third reason in support of hate crime legislation is that statistics show that hate crimes are more likely to involve violence. Lastly, hate crimes have significant impact on the victims and the communities that they belong

to.
It is Lieberman’s arguments that hate crimes damage our communities and are more likely than other crimes to involve violence that engage my emotions the most. When discussing the effects that hate crimes have on communities, Lieberman compares hate crimes to terrorism. The FBI’s own definition of domestic terrorism includes the criterion “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population”. This is perhaps why Corey Pein, an investigative reporter, argues that hate crimes are like terrorism, in the sense that they both “send their victims a message”. Delivering such messages that entail hate for a certain community, by both terrorists and hate crime offenders, are meant to invoke fear and intimidation in the affected communities. Consequently, the security and social fabric of those communities can become compromised. It is compelling, however, when Pein illustrates what he believes to be the “most obvious “ and to me the most emotional, difference between terrorism and hate crimes – that “America is fighting a war against one but not the other”.
The fact that the FBI and other law enforcement officials have identified hate crimes as one of the most significant crime issues facing this country is telling and further justifies the need for hate crime legislation. According to their 2008 statistics, “13,390 police agencies reported 7,783 hate crimes – almost one hate crime for every hour of the day”. More compelling, as I noted previously, hate crimes have also been identified as being more violent than non-biased motivated crimes. According to Jack Levin and Jack MacDavitt, authors of Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed, “the victim of a hate crime assault is four times more likely to requires hospital treatment than the victim of a parallel assault”. These statistical findings are among others that provide evidence that hate crime legislation is necessary.
While much can be argued for the need for hate crime legislation, developing hate crime legislation presents very complex challenges because it can have far reaching implications for our criminal justice system.

Therefore, defining hate crime policy must be very carefully and thoughtfully defined. Evidence of the ambiguity inherent in hate crime legislation can be found in chapter two of the book, Hate Crimes – Criminal Law & Identity Politics, by James H. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter. Jacobs and Potter Say who they are. argue that such ambiguity comes from a lack of consensus regarding the variables that make up hate crime ;how does one define prejudice, whose prejudices should be included in hate crime legislation, which crimes should be included, and what should the link between a motivating prejudice and criminal act look like. While defining all of these variables is critical to fair and effective hate crime legislation, I believe it is the last one that presents the greatest challenge. Although I think that lawmakers can eventually develop a good framework for hate crime legislation that addresses the first three variables, it can still be very difficult for authorities to establish a clear link between a criminal’s motivations and his or her

biases.
The murder of Matthew Shepard, in 1998, is a famous example of a hate crime in which one’s perspective as to whether it was motivated by bias can be highly subjective. The Laramie Project recounts the events leading up to, and after, the murder of Shepherd, a gay student at the University of Wyoming. The book, and subsequent play, captures many of the residents’ highly emotionally charged perspectives and opinions, leading readers and audiences to conclude that this murder was a hate crime. In fact, the murder of Matthew Shepard resulted in the passage of federal hate crime legislation Ten years later, however, another book, The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, proposes that the murder of Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime at all. Rather, the author, Stephen Jimenez, maintains that the sole motivation behind the murder was drug related, and furthermore, that one of the two murders was, himself, gay. Matthew Shepard’s murder is only one of many excellent examples of the challenges and complexities that must be addressed when developing criteria for causality in hate crime law. Matthew’s murder also compels us to find effective ways to do so.
In addition to issues of causality, there are other certain prevailing arguments opposing hate crime legislation that fail to compromise the justifications for having it. One such argument is that it gives preferential treatment to certain people. In the article, “Conservative Perspectives on Hate Crime Law author and award-wining journalist, Justin Quinn assumes this position by comparing hate crime legislation to preferential treatment afforded to people under affirmative action. According to Quinn, “just as affirmative action singles out a particular set of people and gives them preferential treatment regarding social advancement, hate crimes laws single out certain sets of people and provide them with preferential protections in legal matters.
While that may be so for affirmative action, it does not apply to hate crime legislation. Since all people belong to or associate with certain groups, then everyone is a potential victim of hate crimes. Therefore, Quinn’s assumption that hate crime legislation gives certain groups preferential treatment is based on the wrongful common assumption that hate crimes are only targeted toward minority groups. Even Quinn himself refers to an example in which a majority (white) group of kids was targeted because of their race by a minority (African-American) group of kids and was not labeled by local police as a crime motivated by hate. Here, Quinn inadvertently demonstrates that even racial majorities can be victims of a hate crime, proving that anyone is a potential hate crime victim. Clearly defining the variables of hate crime legislation, as previously mentioned, can provide a sound framework for hate crime legislation that addresses disparities like this example, and gives everyone equal protections
Hate crime legislation is justified, because “criminal activity motivated by bias is different from other criminal conduct” (Lieberman). It’s different in the sense that hate crimes, like terrorism, spread fear and sometimes panic, in its victims and the victims’ communities. Furthermore, statistics indicate that hate crimes tend to be more violent than their parallel crimes. For these reasons, and likely many more, the FBI has identified hate crimes as one of the most significant crime issues facing this country. Although hate crime legislation is necessary, we need to be very careful about how to define it – what prejudices should be included, what crimes should be included, and most importantly, what should the criteria be in order to establish a clear link between a criminal’s motivations and his biases. As illustrated by my example of Matthew Shepard’s death, it is this last variable that has the potential create the greatest challenges for our criminal justice system. Rather than caving in to these challenges and opponents’ objections to hate crime legislation, and dismissing such legislation altogether, I think it is possible to carefully and thoughtfully develop clearly defined laws which can effectively and fairly provide harsher punishment for morally worse hate crimes.