Comments | goldfish42: thoughts on hate crime

goldfish42

thoughts on hate crime

Dec 06, 2007 23:30

My friend deliciouspear was talking about hate-crime legislation in her journal, and someone she knows made the following post. This is written by sarahcascade, who I do not know. Up until I read this, I was pretty firmly on the side of prosecuting for the crimes that are already on the books. Most of the people who participated in the discussion were as well, and they ( Read more... )

politics

Comments 4

I respectfully (and strongly) disagree... ursuscelticus December 7 2007, 16:37:22 UTC

It's my understanding that a hate crime is any crime that is meant to intimidate and threaten an entire group of people.

I think this is a highly over-simplified definition of what constitutes a "hate crime". I think the *primary* definition is an act that is motivated by hostility, and perpetrated towards an individual (or group of people) based on their membership in a particular group (race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.). I don't think that people who commit hate crimes think on as big a scale as "we're gonna show all those [insert target here]!" Take, for example, the recent series of attacks in Capital Hill where people have been attacked at least in part because they're gay. I seriously doubt the people who committed these crimes did it with any kind of forethought as to the impact their actions would have on the gay community in Capital Hill.

I don't think specific groups should even come into it. I think the important thing is the method.Why not, since it's usually specific groups that are being targeted? And why is ( ... )

re-defining the issue goldfish42 December 7 2007, 17:44:17 UTC

I realized that this was going to get some people boiling, as I think the original poster of the discussion did as well. I thought about not re-posting it because of that, but I'd rather not avoid the sensitive issues just because they often have strong feelings that go with them ( ... )

Re: I respectfully (and strongly) disagree... mathochist December 7 2007, 19:17:01 UTC

motivated by hostility, and perpetrated towards an individual (or group of people) based on their membership in a particular group

I think you're saying the same thing. The point is not that the perp has consciously planned on intimidating the whole group. When violence is directed toward a person based on their membership in a group, the perp IS, in effect, attacking the entire group. They are not seeing the victim as an individual, they are seeing the group. The effect is, unquestionably, to intimidate the entire group.

Yes, it's simplified, but I think sarahcascade put it very well. The relevant point to me is that the entire group IS a victim of the crime. The perp's conscious motivation isn't very relevant. Most perps are probably not self-aware or intelligent enough to have thought through their complete motivations and all the potential effects of their crimes, anyway.

There is also the fact that a person who is violent toward people based only on their membership in a certain group is more dangerous in society than many other ( ... )

Re: I respectfully (and strongly) disagree... goldfish42 December 8 2007, 01:18:06 UTC

Yeah, the high likelyhood of doing it again is something I thought about, too. Our criminal justice system already has in place stricter punishments for people they judge more likley to re-offend.