Editing Hate crime (section)

==Support for and opposition to hate crime laws==

===Support===
Justifications for harsher punishments for hate crimes focus on the notion that hate crimes cause greater individual and societal harm.<ref name="Palgrave Macmillan UK">{{Citation|last1=Duggan|first1=Marian|title=Prioritized Political Focus: ASB and Hate Crime|date=2014|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137409270_4|work=Administrating Victimization|pages=59–90|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-349-48857-5|access-date=2021-05-01|last2=Heap|first2=Vicky|doi=10.1057/9781137409270_4}}</ref> In a 2014 book, author Marian Duggan asserts that when the core of a person's identity is attacked, the degradation and [[dehumanization]] is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Wider society can suffer from the [[empowerment|disempowerment]] of a group of people.<ref name="Palgrave Macmillan UK"/> Furthermore, it is asserted that the chances for retaliatory crimes are greater when a hate crime has been committed. The [[1992 Los Angeles riots|riots]] in [[Los Angeles]], California, that followed the beating of [[Rodney King]], a [[black people|black]] motorist, by a group of [[white people|white]] police officers are cited as support for this argument.<ref name = "tvccce"/> The beating of white truck driver [[Reginald Oliver Denny|Reginald Denny]] by black rioters during the same riot is also an example that supports this argument.

In ''[[Wisconsin v. Mitchell]],'' the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] unanimously found that ''penalty-enhancement'' hate crime statutes do not conflict with [[free speech]] rights, because they do not punish an individual for exercising [[freedom of expression]]; rather, they allow courts to consider [[motive (law)|motive]] when sentencing a criminal for conduct which is not protected by the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/supreme-court-drama/wisconsin-v-mitchell|access-date=12 October 2011|title=Wisconsin v. Mitchell|publisher=Enotes.com}}</ref> In the case of ''[[Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire]],'' the court defined "fighting words" as "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."<ref>{{citation | last = Sumner | first = L.W. | author-link = L. W. Sumner | contribution = Hate crimes, literature, and speech | editor-last1 = Frey | editor-first1 = R.G. | editor-last2 = Heath Wellman | editor-first2 = Christopher | title = A companion to applied ethics | pages = [https://archive.org/details/companiontoappli0000unse/page/89 89–101] | publisher = Blackwell Publishing | series = Blackwell Companions to Philosophy | location = Oxford, UK Malden, Massachusetts | year = 2005 | doi = 10.1002/9780470996621.ch11 | isbn = 9781405133456 | postscript = . | url = https://archive.org/details/companiontoappli0000unse/page/89 }}</ref>

David Brax argues that critics of hate-crime laws are wrong in claiming that hate crimes punish thoughts or motives; he asserts they do not do this, but instead punish people for choosing these reasons to commit a criminal act.<ref>Brax, David. "Motives, reasons, and responsibility in hate/bias crime legislation." Criminal Justice Ethics 35, no. 3 (2016): 230-248.</ref> Similarly, Andrew Seidel writes, "Hate crime or bias intimidation crimes are not thoughtcrimes. Most crimes require two things: an act and an intent... If you simply hate someone based on race, sexuality, or creed, that thought is not punishable. Only the thought combined with an illegal action is criminal."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Seidel |first1=Andrew |title=The Founding Myth |date=14 May 2019 |publisher=Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. |location=United States of America |isbn=978-1-4549-4391-4 |page=338 |edition=2021}}</ref>

===Opposition===
{{Conservatism sidebar}}
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found the [[R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul|St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance]] amounted to viewpoint-based discrimination in conflict with rights of free speech, because it selectively criminalized bias-motivated speech or symbolic speech for disfavored topics while permitting such speech for other topics.<ref>''[[R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul]]'', 505 U.S. 377 (1992).</ref> Many critics further assert that it conflicts with an even more fundamental right: free thought. The claim is that hate-crime legislation effectively makes certain ideas or beliefs, including religious ones, illegal, in other words, [[thought crime]]s.<ref>'''Sources''':
*{{cite web |author1=The Essayist |title=Hate Crime Premise |url=http://unquietmind.com/hate_crime.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/19991022222811/http://unquietmind.com/hate_crime.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 October 1999 |date=24 July 1998}}
*{{cite web |last1=Evenson |first1=Brad |title=The Guilty Mind |url=http://www.orwelltoday.com/mindguilt.shtml |website=orwelltoday.com |publisher=National Post |date=8 February 2003}}
*{{Cite journal|author1=Schwartz, Lara|author2=Ulit, Ithti Toy|author3=Morgan, Deborah|year=2006|title=Straight talk about hate crimes bills: Anti-gay, anti-transgender bias stall federal hate crimes legislation|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/grggenl7&div=14&id=&page=  |journal=Georgetown Journal of Gender & the Law|volume=7|issue=2|pages=171–86}}
*{{cite web |last1=Kaminer |first1=Wendy |title=The Return of the Thought Police |url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010792 |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071028152619/http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010792 |archive-date=28 October 2007 |date=28 October 2007}}
*{{cite web |last1=Wolski |first1=Chris |title=Hate Crime Laws Will Spawn Thought Police |url=http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=96 |magazine=Capitalism Magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030418181816/http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=96 |archive-date=18 April 2003 |date=1 April 1999}}</ref> Heidi Hurd argues that hate crimes criminalize certain dispositions yet do not show why hate is a morally worse disposition for a crime than one motivated by jealousy, greed, sadism or vengeance or why hatred and bias are uniquely responsive to criminal sanction compared to other motivations. Hurd argues that whether or not a disposition is worse than another is case sensitive and thus it is difficult to argue that some motivations are categorically worse than others.<ref>David Brax, Christian Munthe [https://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explore/projects/assets/PT_11_The_Philosophy_of_Hate_Crime_Anthology_Pt_II_munthe_and_brax.pdf "The Philosophy of Hate Crime Anthology."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510041124/http://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explore/projects/assets/PT_11_The_Philosophy_of_Hate_Crime_Anthology_Pt_II_munthe_and_brax.pdf |date=2016-05-10 }}, ''Introduction to the Philosophy of Hate Crime'' (2013).</ref>

In their book ''Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics'', [[James B. Jacobs]] and Kimberly Potter criticize hate crime legislation for exacerbating conflicts between groups.  They assert that by defining crimes as being committed by one group against another, rather than as being committed by individuals against their society, the labeling of crimes as "hate crimes" causes groups to feel persecuted by one another, and that this impression of persecution can incite a [[Backlash (sociology)|backlash]] and thus lead to an actual increase in crime.<ref name="Jacobs, James B. 1998">Jacobs, James B. & Kimberly Potter. (1998). Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics. New York: Oxford University Press,</ref> Jacobs and Potter also argued that hate crime legislation can end up only covering the victimization of some groups rather than all, which is a form of discrimination itself and that attempts to remedy this by making all identifiable groups covered by hate crime protection thus make hate crimes co-terminus with generic criminal law. The authors also suggest that arguments which attempt to portray hate crimes as worse than normal crimes because they spread fear in a community are unsatisfactory, as normal criminal acts can also spread fear yet only hate crimes are singled out.<ref name="Jacobs, James B. 1998"/> Indeed, it has been argued that victims have varied reactions to hate crimes, so it is not necessarily true that hate crimes are regarded as more harmful than other crimes.<ref>Iganski, Paul, and Spiridoula Lagou. "Hate crimes hurt some more than others: Implications for the just sentencing of offenders." Journal of interpersonal violence 30.10 (2015): 1696-1718.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1177/0886260517746131|pmid = 29295032|title = For Whom Does Hate Crime Hurt More? A Comparison of Consequences of Victimization Across Motives and Crime Types|journal = Journal of Interpersonal Violence|pages = <!-- 088626051774613 -->|year = 2017|last1 = Mellgren|first1 = Caroline|last2 = Andersson|first2 = Mika|last3 = Ivert|first3 = Anna-Karin|volume = 36|issue = 3–4|s2cid = 41221014}}</ref> Dan Kahan argues that the "greater harm" argument is conceptually flawed, as it is only because people value their group identities that attacks motivated by an animus against those identities are seen as worse, thus making it the victim and society's reaction to the crime rather than the crime itself.<ref>Kahan, Dan M. "Two liberal fallacies in the hate crimes debate." Law and Philosophy (2001): 175-193, pp.183-185</ref>

Heidi Hurd argues that hate crime represents an effort by the state to encourage a certain moral character in its citizen and thus represents the view that the instillation of virtue and the elimination of vice are legitimate state goals, which she argues is a contradiction of the principles of liberalism. Hurd also argues that increasing punishment for an offence because the perpetrator was motivated by hate compared to some other motivation means that the justice systems is treating the same crime differently, even though treating like cases alike is a cornerstone of criminal justice.<ref>Hurd, Heidi. "Why Liberals Should Hate'Hate Crime Legislation'." (2001).</ref>

Some have argued hate crime laws bring the law into disrepute and further divide society, as groups apply to have their critics silenced.<ref>{{cite web|last=Troy |first=Daniel E. |url=http://www.aei.org/speech/17122 |title=AEI – Short Publications |publisher=Aei.org |date=4 August 1999 |access-date=14 November 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610125417/http://www.aei.org/speech/17122 |archive-date=10 June 2011 }}</ref> American forensic psychologist [[Karen Franklin]] said that the term ''hate crime'' is somewhat misleading since it assumes there is a hateful motivation which is not present in many occasions;<ref name=twsFrontline>Frontline (PBS),[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/interviews/franklin.html Interviews], Accessed 26 July 2014, "...forensic psychologist, Karen Franklin's dual interests in psychology and the law brought her to question the roots of anti-gay hate crimes... badly needed empirical data on the nature and extent of negative reactions to gays..."</ref> in her view, laws to punish people who commit hate crimes may not be the best remedy for preventing them because the threat of future punishment does not usually deter such criminal acts.<ref name="twsAdvocate">{{cite web
| last= Quinn
| first= Dan
| date= 10 June 1997
| publisher= [[Here Media]]
| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PGQEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22karen+franklin%22+congress+%22hate+crime%22&pg=PT52
| title= the crime that's not necessarily a crime
| access-date= 1 September 2015
| quote=...in the real world, criminals don't calculate their moves based on the specific punishment they will suffer if caught...
}}</ref>  Some on the political left have been critical of hate crime laws for expanding the criminal justice system and dealing with violence against minority groups through punitive measures.<ref name="auto"/> Briana Alongi argues that hate crime legislation is inconsistent, redundant and arbitrarily applied, while also being partially motivated by political opportunism and media bias rather than purely by legal principle.<ref>Alongi, Briana. [https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1941&context=plr ''The Negative Ramifications of Hate Crime Legislation: It's Time to Reevaluate Whether Hate Crime Laws Are Beneficial to Society.''] Pace L. Rev. 37 (2016): 326.</ref>