Hate Crime Legislation

[natedogg]

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Should one be punished differently for murdering a policeman than for murdering, say, a teacher? Or a plumber?

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My mom is a teacher, and my dad is a plumber, so... no.

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natedogg

[elwoodblues]

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it's still possible that the reason the crime was commited in the first place might affect the likelyhood of ultimate rehabilitation

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I would suspect that someone who lynches a black man because he is black is MUCH more likely to repeat offend than someone who murders a man he has found to be sleeping with his 3 year old daughter.

Hate crimes, like terrorism, also have a larger negative affect on society as a whole. The "victim" of a hate crime is both the actual victim as well as other members of the group who are terrorized by the thought that people are willing and able to kill them because of the fact that they sleep with people of the same sex as themselves.

In my mind, society is harmed to a much greater extent by hate motivated crime than by the sime crime with different motivations.

[ACPlayer]

Good post.

Your reasoning is also why it is OK to treat terrorists and (perhaps) alleged terrorists differently. No one wanted to handle the terrorist question in this thread, likely, because it conflicted with their view of how hate crimes should be treated.

[tylerdurden]

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I would suspect that someone who lynches a black man because he is black is MUCH more likely to repeat offend than someone who murders a man he has found to be sleeping with his 3 year old daughter.

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Which is exactly why motive and other circumstances should be considered in sentencing. Creating a new class of crimes is not neccesary to deal with this problem.

[tylerdurden]

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Please expand.

Do you think terrorist murder is not a hate crime? Or is it a hate crime but not the hate crime of a KKK member on a minority? What is the difference?

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The main difference is that terrorist crimes usually have a large number of simultaneous victims. I'm not interested in using emotional terms in defining the crime.

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Should there be special laws to deal with terrorist attackers when they are arrested? Alleged terrorists should be handled differently then alleged baby killers?

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I don't have a problem with terrorism laws. The crimes of blowing up a plane, hijacking a bus, dispersing chemical weapons over a city, or other mass-terror crimes are clearly different than shooting a guy in a robbery or killing a single baby.

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Suspected terrorists should be guilty until proven innocent?

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Yeah. Put some words in people's mouths. This is a really intellectually lazy and reprehensible debate tactic. I'm adjusting your credibility level downward accordingly.

[ACPlayer]

I dont think a terrorist crime can or should be defined by the number of simultaneous victims. The Columbine shooting can hardly be referred to as a terrorist crime.

Terrorist crimes, to me, have two attributes one to cause fear that lasts beyond the actual commission of the particular crime. 9/11 is terrorist by this attribute as the reason and reaction lasted far longer than for example the fear of the beltway bandit. The second attribute is that a terrorist crime has as its motive an attack on the entire group being so terrorized, not just the particular victim(s). Again 9/11 is targetting all Americans and not just the ones in the WTC that day.

Terrorist crimes and Hate crimes are closely related though not quite the same. Hate crimes are often spontaneous as opposed to planned attacks on the group that is being hated.

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Yeah. Put some words in people's mouths. This is a really intellectually lazy and reprehensible debate tactic. I'm adjusting your credibility level downward accordingly.

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Just asking!

I am adjusting your touchiness quotient accordingly. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[BonJoviJones]

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Which is exactly why motive and other circumstances should be considered in sentencing. Creating a new class of crimes is not neccesary to deal with this problem.

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It seems like if you're okay with the concept and support the outcome that the exact implementation shouldn't matter. Why does it?

[andyfox]

My son's duties include being on patrol and also doing paperwork behind a desk. I want him (and all cops) to be as safe as possible. I'm in favor of them getting paid a helluva lot more than they get paid now since they're providing a needed service, at great personal danger, to the community.

But I still have problems with a greater punishment for somebody who kills a person engaged in occupation X as opposed to occupation Y. As another poster suggested in this thread, why not make the punishment for any murder severe to discourage would'be murderers from killing anyone?
Seems to me people are not usually at their best when they encounter a cop in a shooting situation, that they probably don't stop to think about what the penalty will be for killing him. Better, I think, to make guns less available to criminals and to make the penalty for using a gun in the commission of a crime severe than to delineating different penalties depending on who is killed or what the person was thinking when they did the killing.

[tylerdurden]

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I dont think a terrorist crime can or should be defined by the number of simultaneous victims. The Columbine shooting can hardly be referred to as a terrorist crime

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It's not the sole defining characteristic. Jesus, you can be mind-numbingly literal at times.

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Terrorist crimes, to me, have two attributes one to cause fear that lasts beyond the actual commission of the particular crime.

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Victims of routine muggings and other violent personal crimes often have lasting fear and other psychological effects.

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9/11 is terrorist by this attribute as the reason and reaction lasted far longer than for example the fear of the beltway bandit.

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The fear of the beltway bandit (are you talking about the sniper?) ended because they caught the guy. The masterminds of 9/11 are still around, presumably. Also, the number of people affected by the beltway bandit wasn't anywhere close to the number affected by 9/11.


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Terrorist crimes and Hate crimes are closely related though not quite the same. Hate crimes are often spontaneous as opposed to planned attacks on the group that is being hated.

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Intent, premeditation, etc is *definitely* a valid criteria for differentiation of crime classes. We already do that with 1st degree murder vs. (eg) manslaughter.

[tylerdurden]

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It seems like if you're okay with the concept and support the outcome that the exact implementation shouldn't matter. Why does it?

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Because implementing "this is a hate crime" removes a lot of discretion. The outcome is not the same.

Alternative question: if the outcome is the same (which I don't accept) why go through the trouble of making more laws?