How can society determine what is or is not a hate crime?

Question

A follow up to a question asked earlier:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071112104052AA9uMux&r=w

We've established that hate crimes are more heinous because they are targeted not only toward the victim but toward a larger religious/racial group as well.

Barring the actual admitted testimony of the perpetrator, how do we as a society know what is and is not a hate crime? Upon what moral authority can we make that judgment?

Elana - Excellent point. Do you have an answer for your own question?

Answer 1

society, in and of themselves, can't. Ancient rome will have an entirely different view of how bad certain hate crimes are, as well as countless other nations. In ancient rome it was normal for a man to have a young boy as a sex slave. No one thought anything of it. Nowadays its legal in the netherlands for families to abandon their unwilling elderly to lethal injection because they are an inconvenience. You need to have an ultimate standard governing all of humanity's moral conduct in order to determine for everyman, ultimately what is good and what is evil.

I believe that the bible makes that distinction.

Answer 2

Only the testimony of the person or evidence from an outside source that the crime committed was done with the INTENT OF HARMING THE PERSON SOLEY BECAUSE OF THEIR RELIGION/RACE/ORIENTATION.

Case in point. Let's say a gay man was beaten up and robbed. Investigations reveal the main motive of the perpetrator was to mug the person. In fact, his sexuality was not even a factor in him being targeted. Then that would not be a hate crime.

However if the investigations revealed the perp knew the victims orientation and targeted him because of it, either through his testimony, the victim's testimony, witnesses or acquaintences, then it COULD be classfied as a hate crime.

Answer 3

We don't know and just as in finding guilt or innocence we must look at the preponderance of the evidence. What sorts of things were stated before, during and after the crime. What type of history does the individual have who is on trial, has he/she committed other like crimes targeting the same type of individual. What are the circumstance surrounding the crime, was there peer pressure, were there extenuating circumstances in the manner or weapons or execution of the crime that would belie this type of hate. What are possible motives for the crime, in the absence of all other motives is "hate" sufficient to have prompted the actions. What were the actions or responses or perceptions of the victims, eyewitnesses ? Since we do not have the "moral authority" to make these decisions we must use our laws and legal system as imperfect as it may be. And we must strengthen and change laws when it is determined that these decisions are erroneous or biased.
Addl- I would respectfully disagree that all crimes are hate crimes, some crimes are crimes of convenience, crimes of passion, crimes of desperation or crimes of poor decision making

Answer 4

A hate crime is a crime that starts or continues the destruction of a race and or religion. We as american people have the authority of common sense to think of the judgement. For example: A black man is mugged by a white man. That might be a hate crime, but more likely the man just wanted to steal his money.
example 2: An asian person beats up a white person for no definite reason. This is a hate crime by the standards of the people of the United states of america. If you attack another person randomly, and they are a different race, that is considered racism.

Answer 5

While I deplore hate, I feel that hate crime legislation is just a means to sanctify a public lynching of a person where punishment dictated in code is insufficient for the revenge that people seem to want. In my eyes all crime is a hate crime.
Just like a civil lawsuit is frequently a follow-up to a failed conviction of a felony. It's a end around on our double jeopardy laws.

Punish for the crime that was done, not to reward the lobbyist pushing for a stiffer conviction than the crime would otherwise call for. We don't need more legislation to deal with. More importantly we need to keep an even handed and consistent punishment for similar crimes.

Answer 6

Finally, an interesting and different sort of question than the usual. Thank you
This is complicated because if someone murders someone else who happens to be gay or of another race or something, does that automatically mean it is a hate crime or was there another motive from the killer? You can't leave out the actual admitted testimony because without it there is no evidence of a hate crime.

Answer 7

Well if you have established that committing a crime against one person of a group is a crime against every individual in the group then I guess we ought to create a legal system that punishes crimes against cerain groups based on how many people there are in a group. A serial killer who only takes Rastafarian Jamaicans in Alabama should be guilty of a class A misdemeanor and a drunk driver giving a white female in Vermont whiplash should get the death penalty because of the number of people you hurt. Ridiculous.

Answer 8

Good question, for all we know any crime involving a minority and a white person could be considered a hate crime. But the actual principal of the crime is what determines a hate crime. If the crime was committed because the person was, black, gay, jewish etc... or if the crime was committed with no prejudice.

Answer 9

I don't like the idea of "hate crimes." The notion of "hate crimes" seems to elevate whatever bit of violence of vandalism involved into the product of some thought process. I much prefer the term "stupidity crimes." This is a much more accurate description of the nature of the behavior.

"Let's beat that guy up because he {doesn't go to the same church}:{speaks a language other than the one we speak}: {has differently shaped eyes}" etc is not "hate" it's pure, unadulterated stupidity.

I suspect people are attracted to committing "hate crimes" because they somehow have the impression that the people they hate must deserve what they get. I can't imagine a group of boneheads saying to each other, "Let's go out and do something stupid!."

Answer 10

We use the same moral authority that we use for everything else:

Popular opinion

When enough people change their minds about something, it ceases to be a crime, or becomes one.

You can see this in practice in the Catholic church all the time. The pope regularly changes what "god" thinks is moral or immoral, depending on what century you're living in.

Has "god" simply changed his mind? Of course not. God doesn't exist. But man and his opinions do. And that is why the Catholic church regularly changes its official stance on moral issues.