Thoughts on hate crime legislation?

[CynicalIdealist]

I'm ignorant of the provisions of hate crime legislation. Does it just target people who attack minorities completely unprovoked or does it also make sentences harsher--regardless of circumstance--if the victim is of minority status?

On the one hand I believe in combating discrimination, but on the other hand I don't believe in supporting our fucked up prison system or fascist police force.

Maybe the best position to take here is one favoring hate crime legislation but with adjectives?

[Rhizome]

Hate crime laws (and laws in general) perpetuate a society that devalues the lives and well-being of those incarcerated. It presupposes that, for example, sentencing a rapist to thirty years prison, and giving him an additional ten years for violating an LGBT hate crime statute for sexually assaulting a trans woman, will benefit all trans women.

This of course is an intentional oversimplification made by reformists of every sort, whether they be NOW, the NAACP, or the HRC; because a broader, more inclusive analysis might lead one to draw revolutionary conclusions that challenge the States role in perpetuating social disparities.

I mean, even if every rapist who has ever assaulted a trans person was picked up off the street and thrown in jail and given 10 extra years-- if you're one the thousands of trans women who are disproportionately imprisoned by the State -- how does hate crimes legislation benefit you?!

[Princess Luna]

One fact of hate crime laws that people seem to overlook (and which i think is far more important than giving extra prison time) is the fact, if a hate crime occurs and the local police fail to solve it in a certain amount of time, it's taken up by the federal police. If someone was beaten to death for being gay, in the area i live, I highly doubt the local police would care, which isn't say that the feds would care ethier, but i think there is a higher chance of them taking it seriously, than some local redneck sheriff.

[MattShizzle]

It's normally (and should be) used when the victim is chosen because of his or her race/gender/sexual orinetation/religion/etc. If you are white and beat up a black man because you got in an argument in a bar over who the better sports team is, that's not a hate crime. If you beat up a black man because he's black and you're a racist piece of garbage that is one.

[GX.]

I'm ignorant of the provisions of hate crime legislation. Does it just target people who attack minorities completely unprovoked or does it also make sentences harsher--regardless of circumstance--if the victim is of minority status?

A hate crime requires two circumstances 1) some other, underlying violent crime 2) the violent crime must have been motivated in some way by hate/bias against whatever group they're targeting. So to be considered a hate crime the victim's minority status must be established as a motive. It is like an enhanced penalty, which is already an established feature of criminal law for better or worse. So it is not at all this:

[Hate crimes law] presupposes that, for example, sentencing a rapist to thirty years prison, and giving him an additional ten years for violating an LGBT hate crime statute for sexually assaulting a trans woman, will benefit all trans women.

(I have to point out that most state level statutes protecting sexual orientation exclude gender identity, so they're not "LGBT" statutes; unfortunately trans people have pretty limited protection on the state level) It is not about what benefit might arise from an enhanced sentence but rather intent and harm resulting from the crime, the argument being that hate crimes produce an elevated level of harm. And it's usually pretty hard to establish intent so a lot of people charged with a hate crime (maybe even the majority, I don't know) aren't convicted though as tricky dicky pointed out there are more important considerations, like allowing federal investigation.

Maybe the best position to take here is one favoring hate crime legislation but with adjectives?

Yes you can't ignore the fact that the prison system plays a pretty huge role in reproducing inequality. And that the state is also an actor in discrimination. No to hate crimes, but police commit them too

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm ignorant of the provisions of hate crime legislation. Does it just target people who attack minorities completely unprovoked or does it also make sentences harsher--regardless of circumstance--if the victim is of minority status?

No, to get the added penalties, it has to be proven that there was a motivation based on race or sexual-orientation (in places where these laws exist).

On the one hand I believe in combating discrimination, but on the other hand I don't believe in supporting our fucked up prison system or fascist police force.

Yeah, our goal should be the abolition of capitalist police and prisons. However, looking at crime - at least in the US - in a social context, traditionally and even today (let's take anti-black racism for an example), white on black crimes and black on black crimes lead to much less severe punishment in general than black on white crimes. On top of that, before civil rights, white on black hate-crimes were often not even considered a crime by the courts even if it was a crime on the books. Not to mention that Jim-Crow was a hate crime system that was legal even on the books!

So in this situation, I do support these laws in the sense that people fought for these crimes even to be taken seriously. If the system knows it can't just give a wink to violent white supremacists then that is a reform that helps strengthen our side.

It's the same with violence by cops - they can be caught on film using racial slurs and beating or killing people, yet they hardly ever get any repercussions from it. I don't want to see people in prison, but I'll gladly make an exception when massive protests and some small riots force, for example, California to imprison the killer-cop Mehserle. The tragedy is that he killed someone in front of scores of witnesses and probably a half-dozen cameras and only spent a year in jail.

[blake 3:17]

In general I`m opposed to hate laws. However --

One fact of hate crime laws that people seem to overlook (and which i think is far more important than giving extra prison time) is the fact, if a hate crime occurs and the local police fail to solve it in a certain amount of time, it's taken up by the federal police. If someone was beaten to death for being gay, in the area i live, I highly doubt the local police would care, which isn't say that the feds would care ethier, but i think there is a higher chance of them taking it seriously, than some local redneck sheriff.

If it is a tool for making law enacted fairly then yeah

Yeah, our goal should be the abolition of capitalist police and prisons. However, looking at crime - at least in the US - in a social context, traditionally and even today (let's take anti-black racism for an example), white on black crimes and black on black crimes lead to much less severe punishment in general than black on white crimes.

Thanks for pointing out the racist sentencing patterns related to black on white crime. Do you have the latest stats? The last I saw were pretty mind blowing.

We do need to end the totally shitty prison system. In the mean time steps need to be taken to make that same system relatively fair. Would it make sense for the left to take up abolition of the death penalty as a central demand?