Hate crime

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Hate crimes (also known as bias crimes) are violent crimes, hate speech or vandalism, motivated by feelings of enmity against an identifiable social group. If systematic, rather than spontaneous, participants in such crimes are members of hate groups.

1 Arguments for hate crime legislation
2 Arguments against hate crimes legislation
3 See also
4 External links
5 News reports on recent alleged hate-crimes

Arguments for hate crime legislation

When it enacted the Hate Crimes Act of 2000, the New York State Legislature included legislative findings that offer a survey of the various arguments for hate crime legislation. The legislature specifically found that:

"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. Current law does not adequately recognize the harm to public order and individual safety that hate crimes cause. Therefore, our laws must be strengthened to provide clear recognition of the gravity of hate crimes and the compelling importance of preventing their recurrence. Accordingly, the legislature finds and declares that hate crimes should be prosecuted and punished with appropriate severity." [1]

Arguments against hate crimes legislation

One basic argument against the concept of hate crimes is that it criminalizes thought by increasing the penalty for crimes based solely on motive. Some argue that the deliberation or premeditation that distinguishes degrees of murder and manslaughter are part of the act itself. Motives, whether they are hate, jealousy, greed, or passion, are not part of the crime in the same way. People sitting in a room discussing their hatred of a social group are not committing conspiracy. On the other hand, people plotting to rob a bank are guilty.

In weighing an offense under a utilitarian philosophy, the argument questions whether individual deterrence can be achieved over such an entrenched social conscience. Further, there is concern that general deterrence may not be achieved, and in fact may have the opposite effect of enraging individuals pscyhologically susceptible to developing anger and hatred towards others amidst a domination complex.^{[citation needed]}

The issue arises when a statute imposes additional sentencing criteria for a pre-existing offense for a guilty mind (mens rea). However, not every state form of statute is susceptible to this argument. In the Pennsylvania Code, a separate offense exists entitled "ethnic intimidation." The ethnic intimidation offense is a particular offense which requires both a specific form of criminal conduct and a particular state of mind (mens rea) at the time. There are offenses in criminal law, within both common law and civil law systems which do not require a separate mens rea including most public welfare (regulatory) offenses and homicide statutes based upon common law doctrinal Felony-Murder and Misdemeanor-Manslaughter rules [2].