crime rates and hate crime

Coming back to life

Coming back to life wrote:

I think this is being blown way out of all proportion. Even in PC mad England it is very hard for someone to be convicted of a hate crime. The principle is the same as any crime - no sentence for the crime without proof. A few months back some people in the police were dealt with for discriminating against whites for employment. Try writing a letter to someone saying "I'm sorry you haven't got the job because you're a man" for a job which isn't gender relevant. You wouldn't last 5 seconds.

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rebornFixer

Coming back to life wrote:

A few months back some people in the police were dealt with for discriminating against whites for employment.

What happened, exactly? Curious ... I'd be shocked if these laws actually did anything to protect the rights of a majority group.

lalalalaaaaaaaa

We have hate crime laws for the same reason we make convicted child molesters register as sex offenders to let everyone in their community know they're a child molester: these kinds of crimes can potentially affect a community more than most other crimes. If you have a community where 30% of the people are little kids and you have a child molester running around, that's a huge concern. If you have 1 guy who stole a computer from someone, that's not a huge concern for the community. Everyone accepts that there will be theft, and we take precautions to prevent it. But one computer stolen isn't going to send a community into upheval like a child molester moving in or a person willing to hurt others based on race, gender, religion, etc. might.

Hate crimes ARE different, regardless of how similar you can make them look to other crimes on a case-by-case basis. These laws have nothing to do with being PC.

And to answer the original question: racists commit the most hate crimes.

http://hate-crime.website-works.com/hate-students.htm#STATS

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004885.html

surferdude

Saturnal wrote:

Hate crimes ARE different, regardless of how similar you can make them look to other crimes on a case-by-case basis. These laws have nothing to do with being PC.

The second that the punishment for a "hate" crime is more severe than the same "non-hate" crime you've given special status to one victim. That is flat out wrong.

rebornFixer

Saturnal wrote:

We have hate crime laws for the same reason we make convicted child molesters register as sex offenders to let everyone in their community know they're a child molester: these kinds of crimes can potentially affect a community more than most other crimes. If you have a community where 30% of the people are little kids and you have a child molester running around, that's a huge concern. If you have 1 guy who stole a computer from someone, that's not a huge concern for the community. Everyone accepts that there will be theft, and we take precautions to prevent it. But one computer stolen isn't going to send a community into upheval like a child molester moving in or a person willing to hurt others based on race, gender, religion, etc. might.

Hate crimes ARE different, regardless of how similar you can make them look to other crimes on a case-by-case basis. These laws have nothing to do with being PC.

And to answer the original question: racists commit the most hate crimes.

http://hate-crime.website-works.com/hate-students.htm#STATS

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004885.html

I don't know ... You raise some good points, but one could also argue that ALL crimes affect specific communities, not just individuals. If there are people being assaulted in my neighborhood for ANY reason, there's a major problem. People in the entire neighborhood are going to be concerned, not just members of one group. Let's say someone firebombs a mosque or a synagogue in my neighborhood. Maybe not everyone things like I do, but I think that would bother me a lot, and I am neither Jewish nor Muslim. Arson is bad no matter who is targeted ... The perpetrators should be hit with the book, but I'm not sure why they should get it worse due to a specific ideological motivation to commit the crime.

jeffbr

surferdude wrote:

The second that the punishment for a "hate" crime is more severe than the same "non-hate" crime you've given special status to one victim. That is flat out wrong.

Exactly. And there's still that nagging problem of conjuring or determining hate's influence. In the links provided there are a number of indicators of possible hate that may have influenced the perpatrator. Pretty thin ice for building legal theories.

Since we're now linking to other material, here's an article that puts forth some additional reasons to oppose hate crimes, and highlights some of the dangers we face by embracing the notion of hate crimes:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff95.html

fanch75

know1 wrote:

I don't like the term hate crime. I think it should be abolished.

I agree. It's criminalizing a thought. A dispicable thought, but criminalizing a throught nonetheless.

I remember during one of the presidential debates, Kerry referenced the gay gentleman in Texas, who was tortured & killed by being dragged behind a vehicle, and then asked Bush why there wasn't any "hate crime" laws in Texas. Bush then responded that the killers were put to death. That was pretty much the end of that little discussion point.

I'm against the death penalty, but that is an example that shows that the enforced laws on the books eliminate any need for any additional "hate crime" penalties. They're merely political so that folks in office who support them can say "Look how I'm against hate crimes!"

lalalalaaaaaaaa

surferdude wrote:

The second that the punishment for a "hate" crime is more severe than the same "non-hate" crime you've given special status to one victim. That is flat out wrong.

Hate crime laws don't give special status to the victim, they give special status to the criminal.

lalalalaaaaaaaa

reborncareerist wrote:

I don't know ... You raise some good points, but one could also argue that ALL crimes affect specific communities, not just individuals. If there are people being assaulted in my neighborhood for ANY reason, there's a major problem. People in the entire neighborhood are going to be concerned, not just members of one group. Let's say someone firebombs a mosque or a synagogue in my neighborhood. Maybe not everyone things like I do, but I think that would bother me a lot, and I am neither Jewish nor Muslim. Arson is bad no matter who is targeted ... The perpetrators should be hit with the book, but I'm not sure why they should get it worse due to a specific ideological motivation to commit the crime.

Again, it's different if someone firebombs a Mosque as opposed to a restaurant or something. Both crimes are similar, but one is way more likely to cause a larger violent backlash from a large portion of the community (in this case it'd be the Muslim community). I know it "shouldn't be that way" but it is. That's reality.

Maybe it's different where you live, but where I live everyone basically accepts the fact that there will always be some theft, domestic violence, and random assaults. When we read about these incidents in the paper, it doesn't generate an angry lynch mob like a hate crime can. Again, that's why sex offenders are made to publically register with their town, and it's why we have hate crime laws. There are larger issues at stake when it comes to specific crimes that are a sub-type of another.

Coming back to life

reborncareerist wrote:

What happened, exactly? Curious ... I'd be shocked if these laws actually did anything to protect the rights of a majority group.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4806430.stm

rebornFixer

Saturnal wrote:

Again, it's different if someone firebombs a Mosque as opposed to a restaurant or something. Both crimes are similar, but one is way more likely to cause a larger violent backlash from a large portion of the community (in this case it'd be the Muslim community). I know it "shouldn't be that way" but it is. That's reality.

Hmmm ... Hate crime laws to prevent violent bashlashes? Maybe, although I wonder if they would actually do that. Now we are straying from laws to protect disadvantaged groups, and straying toward laws to protect everyone else from communities of people who are violence-prone. I don't think this is the intent.

lalalalaaaaaaaa

reborncareerist wrote:

Hmmm ... Hate crime laws to prevent violent bashlashes? Maybe, although I wonder if they would actually do that. Now we are straying from laws to protect disadvantaged groups, and straying toward laws to protect everyone else from communities of people who are violence-prone. I don't think this is the intent.

Hate crime laws are made to protect everyone, not any disadvantaged group. If you look at the statistics, everyone is a potential victim for a hate crime. The notion that hate crime laws are intended to give extra protection to certain groups is incorrect.

And these laws are not implying any one group of people is more prone to commit violence. We're all prone to it if we feel we are in danger, and that's why we see so many of these types of situations escalate. That's why these crimes are different, and that's why they need additional attention. It's explained by a lot of different groups if you google for something like "why do we need hate crime laws?".

http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/serving_ottawa/support_units/hate_crimes_unit.cfm

jeffbr

So if we can add penalties for what we think they're thinking, why not arrest them in advance of committing crimes? That way we can spare the victim.

hippiemom

jeffbr wrote:

Let's make sure we punish the actual crimes committed rather than trying to devine what may or may not have been the motivation by the perpetrator of the crime.

But we've always taken thought and motivation into consideration. That's why a pre-meditated murder is thought of as worse than a "crime of passion," or an assault that wasn't intended to kill but did. The victim is just as dead in any case, but it's argued that the criminals represent three different levels of danger to society and should thus be treated differently by our justice system.

jeffbr

hippiemom wrote:

But we've always taken thought and motivation into consideration. That's why a pre-meditated murder is thought of as worse than a "crime of passion," or an assault that wasn't intended to kill but did. The victim is just as dead in any case, but it's argued that the criminals represent three different levels of danger to society and should thus be treated differently by our justice system.

But with pre-meditation we aren't trying to devine thought or intent. We prove it based on actions leading up to the crime. So if there's pre-meditation and it can be proven then use that, rather than some nebulous notion of "hate".

lalalalaaaaaaaa

jeffbr wrote:

So if we can add penalties for what we think they're thinking, why not arrest them in advance of committing crimes? That way we can spare the victim.

Before the crime is committed, there is no victim to be spared. But that's besides the point anyways, because hate crime laws aren't meant to give any single victim more justice. They're meant to protect the community as a whole as I described before.

surferdude

Saturnal wrote:

Before the crime is committed, there is no victim to be spared. But that's besides the point anyways, because hate crime laws aren't meant to give any single victim more justice. They're meant to protect the community as a whole as I described before.

That's not what they do, they only give special stauts to a select group of victims. It says the crime is more heinious because you're gay than if you're not gay. The impact of the crime is greater if you are black than if you are caucasian. It's steeped in guilt and victimhood. It's bullshit and disciminatory.

lalalalaaaaaaaa

surferdude wrote:

That's not what they do, they only give special stauts to a select group of victims. It says the crime is more heinious because you're gay than if you're not gay. The impact of the crime is greater if you are black than if you are caucasian. It's steeped in guilt and victimhood. It's bullshit and disciminatory.

There is no select group of victims. If you look at the statistics, offenders come from all groups (anti-gay, anti-hetero, anti-white, anti-black, etc.).

farfromglorified

All my murders were love crimes.

disconnected

http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=221817&page=10