Hate Crimes Differ From Ordinary

Hate crimes differ from ordinary crimes from many points-of-view. For instance, one point of differentiation is the impact they have upon the victim and the larger group to which the victim belongs to. An example has been provided in "Attorney General's Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes" by mentioning the Jewish and Filipino communities throughout U.S. that were strongly impacted by the attack on the West Valley Jewish Community Center and the slaying of Joseph Ileto in the San Fernando Valley in the summer of 1999.

Another community greatly impacted by the murders of Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming and Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, was the gay community. According to many authors, hate crimes affect not only the victim but also all the members of the victim's group. From the point-of-view of the punishment involved, hate crimes deserve greater punishment since they tend to spark retaliation and further intergroup conflict. Retribution is another aspect that differentiates hate crime from ordinary crime.

The offenders in hate crimes deserve more punishment, according to several arguments: they produce more psychological trauma to victims, victims may suffer more physical trauma, and again, in establishing the punishment are the impact of the crime and the further conflict they produce. Moreover, hate crimes are differentiated from the point-of-view of constitutional laws and policy. Gerstenfeld (2004) stated that hate crimes laws come into effect when the crime committed by a person is motivated by the victim's group.

In the U.S., each state has certain protected groups by the laws. Common to all those laws is that they include crimes based on race, ethnicity, and religion Gerstenfeld (1992). The protected groups are those based on sexual orientation, gender, Which groups to be included in such category has been considered a contentious issue. The same author cited above has concluded that the primary value of hate crime laws is symbolic, because they send a message that certain types of behavior are intolerable.

Several of the arguments presented above, which distinguish hate crime from ordinary crime are retributive in nature. One opinion is that laws should exist concerning hate crimes because these offenses deserve worse penalties (Gerstenfeld, 2004). Another fact concerning the laws are their supposed deterrent effects; many authors believe that crime legislation will discourage people from committing offenses. (Chang, 1994, cited in Gerstenfeld, 2004). Hate crimes have been termed those brutal crimes motivated by bias or hatred for a person or group.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hate crimes are defined as "a criminal offense committed against a person or property, which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic/national origin, or sexual orientation" (cited in Nolan & Akiyama, 1999). In a general sense, the authors cited above state that the motivation for the criminal offence is what makes the offense a hate crime.

They suggest that hate crime is a traditional type of crime, like murder, rape, burglary, robbery and intimidation. But the distinction between these and hate crimes is that the latter are motivated by hatred that is deeply grounded in bigotry (Levin & McDevitt, 1994, cited in Nolan & Akiyama, 1999). An important issue concerning hate crimes are the fact that very often they are not identified or are misinterpreted by police officer. Several reasons identified have been their belief that all crimes of similar magnitude should be treated the same.

Levin (1992, cited in Nolan & Akiyama, 1999) notes that police officers tend to identify crimes based on the severity of injury or the magnitude of property damage and not on the basis of motive. There are many thinkers and writers that question the legitimacy of hate or bias crime laws on the basis that they violate a fundamental democratic principle by punishing individuals for their prejudiced thoughts and beliefs (Altman, 2001).

The assumption is that the defendant had a bias motive for committing the offense and the motive consists solely of the defendant's thought. (Gellman, 1992). Therefore, it has been argued that bias crime laws are illegitimate because they punish motive. In addition, the fact that complicates things further is that the motive is inextricably tied to a certain set on political values and attitudes. Other writers have recognized that hate crime is a social construct, focusing on prejudice as a criminal act.

It attempts to extend the civil rights paradigm into the field of criminal law. (Jacobs & Potter, 1998). However, there are several justifications put forth for such laws. These justifications also serve in the context of this paper as further arguments that help differentiate hate crimes from ordinary crimes.

James Weinstein (cited in Altman, 2001) gave five possible justifications for such laws: prejudice is morally reprehensible than other motives and so deserves greater punishment (retributive justice); society's morality holds prejudice to be morally more reprehensible and so requires more punishment; bias crime do extra harm to their victims because the offense is understood as an attack on their identity; bias crimes do extra harm to the victim's community because the attack is understood by the community as an attack against it and a threat to its members; bias crimes do extra harm to society in general because they increase tensions and conflict among social groups.

The incidences of hate crime are important because are the first step in recognizing the importance and impact of such crimes. After the hate crime occurs, before the crime is counted.