What do you think of hate crimes?

[Heraclitus]

Incidentally, your original point was to the effect that the US doesn't have problems like the lynching of blacks anymore. That is obviously false.

You are kidding right? Lynch mobs are a thing of the past for Blacks, else people wouldn't be whining about cotton balls and nooses (which turn out to be sometimes set by students that aren't white).

[Elok]

Because of a few reasons. Firstly there's an argument to be made about the risks involved- that a violent crime driven by a clear agenda creates a greater climate of fear and risk.

Again, terrorism covers this.

Secondly, one can avoid getting killed for cheating at poker by not playing it. Stopping being black or gay is trickier, creating a greater fear of unavoidable risk in the wider public.

This is pretty much identical to the first argument...terrorism.

Third there's the social angle (which, as we've already covered, has been around a lot longer than the US has). It creates a greater sense of revulsion in society- or at least the sectors of society that matter in this sense (for good or bad.)

...and that's First Amendment. Anything else?

[notyoueither]

Elok: by citing terrorism are you not conceding that crimes motivated by bigotry merit extra sanctions beyond the simple criminal charge?

[notyoueither]

You are kidding right? Lynch mobs are a thing of the past for Blacks

Lynching, or similar crimes, does not require a mob, or a rope and a tree.

Do you think the guy who was dragged behind a truck cares that it was only two or three people who killed him? Is he relieved somehow that he wasn't hung?

Do the other black people of his community feel safer somehow? 'Whew! Technically, he wasn't lynched. We can rest easy now.'

[Elok]

Elok: by citing terrorism are you not conceding that crimes motivated by bigotry merit extra sanctions beyond the simple criminal charge?

Uh, no. By citing terrorism I'm saying that criminal acts intended to intimidate people merit sanctions beyond the simple criminal charge. Whether the people intimidated are black, Hindu, left-handed or Redskins fans is irrelevant.

[notyoueither]

If a crime does intimidate people who are not the direct victim, why does it matter if there was intent to do so or not?

Is not the damage to society the point?

[Kuciwalker]

Which murder victim has ever been 'made whole?'

Most if not all criminal codes of various states levy harsher sanctions for the taking of a life by degrees based on intent. I believe it is also common to differentiate different degrees of assault. I would suppose that part of the reason would be that some crimes of a type deserve harsher punishment and society would benefit from longer periods where people who commit them are isolated.

Except nearly all of those distinctions can be motivated by deterrence and prevention.

I see no reason not to add a kicker when the crime is based on racism, etc. I'm not seeing any good arguments against it. Certainly not arguments based on restitution or deterrence.

1) There's no reason to add the kicker in the first place.

2) There are legitimate civil liberties concerns when the government passes laws that explicitly discriminate based on political opinions.

Incidentally, your original point was to the effect that the US doesn't have problems like the lynching of blacks anymore. That is obviously false.

It doesn't have the problem to the degree where special intervention might be warranted*, and it's doubtful that hate crimes laws would significantly reduce the amount of violent crime.

*even in the worst days of lynching, the problem was not so much that what they were doing was legal as that the local police and courts were complicit.

[Kuciwalker]

By the way, I disagree with Elok wrt terrorism laws. In fact, anti-terrorism laws may be worse, because the authorities have very strong motivations to misapply them. Didn't they try to charge bin Laden's driver with terrorism or something?

[DRoseDARs]

You are kidding right? Lynch mobs are a thing of the past for Blacks

James Byrd, Jr. begs to differ. Or, at least he would, had he not been lynched in 1998.

[Kuciwalker]

And his murderers were executed.

edit: nevermind, one of them only got life

[DRoseDARs]

Two of the three anyway, but that's not the point being made: Lynchings (and otherwise violent racism in the United States) didn't end in the 1960s. Far less frequent of course, but violent hate crimes against blacks do still happen. There were pieces of him for three miles.

[Kuciwalker]

The point, as I've stated repeatedly, is not that they don't happen but that they don't happen as part of a systematic effort to oppress a minority that is condoned by an entire region and the local police and judiciary. Moreover, they are rare enough that even if making them extra-special-illegal would deter them (I suspect it wouldn't) you would still be deterring very few crimes for the same risk to civil liberties.

[notyoueither]

You're the only one arguing deterrence.

Deterrence is a red herring.

Some crimes deserve harsher punishment and society deserves to have some criminals seperated for longer periods of time.

[DRoseDARs]

The point, as I've stated repeatedly, is not that they don't happen but that they don't happen as part of a systematic effort to oppress a minority that is condoned by an entire region and the local police and judiciary. Moreover, they are rare enough that even if making them extra-special-illegal would deter them (I suspect it wouldn't) you would still be deterring very few crimes for the same risk to civil liberties.

Which brings us back to

Since when is deterrence the only function of criminal law?

This'll sidetrack a bit from the main "hate crime" topic. I don't care how nasty and vile the speech, I wouldn't legislate the right away to be a verbal bilge pump. I do however draw the bloody line when that turns into direct violent action. There's petty crimes and violent crimes, but then there are heinous crimes, crimes of a particularly malicious intent above and beyond mere criminality. Sex-based attacks (rape and general woman beating et al) and terrorism are good examples of crimes taken to a particularly egregious level. It isn't really about deterring the behaviors, it's about punishing for them. Grounding your own child may deter her from doing it again but that isn't guaranteed to make the other neighborhood children stop that same behavior. Any deterrent effect beyond the punishee is merely incidental and a bonus, but not a sure thing. They have to be afraid of the punishment potentially being brought upon themselves for them to be deterred by seeing your child being punished for the same behavior. Fixating on this being any different in criminal law is at odds with reality. We punish a behavior as a crime, those same crimes continue to occur, so clearly we shouldn't waste our time making them crimes since the punishment doesn't deter others from committing those crimes? How does that make sense? It doesn't, because the focus is on punishment for the guilty and hope that others will be deterred from the behavior, not the other way around.

It could be viewed as a chicken-and-egg or cart-before-the-horse problem (either seems to work in different ways; unsure which fits better). Do you punish then deter, or deter then punish? If deterrence is viewed as a visual (they see the punishment or are otherwise fully cognizant of it), verbal or written warning (have not seen the punishment, but are aware that the behavior is considered a crime and may or may not know the punishment), then in the second order it would be "Don't do this, it is wrong. Do it and you will be punished." Inevitably, someone will do it and if deterrence was the prime reason for making the behavior a crime, it will have failed. In the first order, one will see that punishment will occur if they do it, so perhaps they shouldn't do it ... but perhaps they'll do it anyway. They might not fear the punishment where others might, or they might get away with the crime clean (not even face the risk of punishment like the neighborhood kids that aren't yours) where others don't (the kid who is yours). So the notion that deterrence ought to be the driving force behind criminal law rather than punishment for completed acts is a flawed notion because there's no guarantee that the next guy will be deterred from being that next guy. If the punishment gives others pause great, but it didn't for this guy.

:-\ I'm not sure I'm verbalizing this the way I want to express it. Simply, I just think deterring future acts isn't as important as first punishing past acts. I see deterrence as a secondary effect that may or may not materialize, whereas punishment is a more likely and more controllable outcome. Punishment for criminal behavior works only as punishment for that behavior. Any deterrence that arises from that is merely a beneficial secondary effect.

I haven't been following this discussion as closely as I probably should have, but being part of a particular and susceptible group just makes me not really want to think about hate crimes. I've not faced them myself, but I've seen them myself and they're made of pure ugly. There was a student here in this county and a personal friend for a while that was out and faced all kinds of hate from his peers. Sadly, he sometimes turned on his friends out of frustration over what he was going through (because really, fighting back against his attackers would probably have gotten him killed, as you'll read in a moment). It was even worse once we got to high school; the faculty turned a blind eye despite knowing full-well what was happening. At one point, a group of hicks our sophomore year actually threw a lasso/noose around him (poor throw to begin with and he reacted quickly, thank god) and threatened to drag him behind their truck. This was a year or two before the lynching in Texas. Instead, the high schools passed him around like a hot potato instead dealing with the problem and protecting him. He eventually sued the school district as well as a number of individual teachers and general faculty ...and won. Part of the outcome was Washoe County had to totally revamp it policies on homosexual students and how to deal with bullying. In the years since graduating, I've worked alongside kids that are still in high school and it seems things HAVE improved, though I'm sure problems still arise. Those students weren't deterred despite knowing there may well be punishments for their behavior.

[KrazyHorse]

Where opinions constitute mens rea, and concide with actus reus, they impact on punishment. It was around before the US constitution existed, and was a feature of criminal law that the US constitution never changed.

You've had over 200 years to address this issue in your constitution, if it's really so bothersome. Go to it.

Attempting to conflate mens rea ("intent") with motive is extraordinarily disingenuous of you. Hate is a motive. Hate as motive may be used to prove intent, just as the fact that some guy is ****ing another guy's wife may be (or any other demonstrable motive).