Hate Crimes

This reminds me of South Park's episode on hate crimes.

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Original post by Johnny Watson A lot of people say hate crime legislation is unconstitutional, because it factors in the motive of the crime as a part of the crime, and punishes people for both their crime and the reason they did it. On the other hand, people in support of hate crime laws say that someone who commits a hate crime is not only a threat to their victum, but a threat to everyone else in that particular group they target their hatred towards. While I can understand the former argument, I tend to agree with the latter. Someone who randomly bounds and gags a person and sets them on fire is no doubt a danger to society, but someone who does the same because their victum is of a particular race, creed, or alternative lifestyle not only hurts their victum, but sends a threatening message to the group they're targeting, and potentially incites more violence toward that group (if not, at the very least, stirring up some unrest within that particular community). In spite of the Orwellian fears people have about hate crime laws (comparing them to "thought crime" or what have you), I think hate crime laws are just, because I see a real superlative danger hate crimes cause in comparison to other violent crimes. I'd like to know what the GameDev.net community thinks of hate crime law.

actually that's quite an argument >against< hate crime law because all crimes punish you by jail to >PREVENT< you from hurting the comunity anymore so in all case it is because you are a risk to a group of poeple... why should this be any diferent? anwyay i'll have to say i'm on south park side can't say it better than they did (do you really want the women to win???)

I'm all for punishing people who commit hate crimes, but what I don't get is, even though there is the freedom of speach, why in hell don't they make the KKK an illegal terrorist organization or something? Or what about the Nazi party?

I mean, sure, freedom of speach, but seriously, a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Regarding the KKK and the Nazis, they are free to talk the talk, but they ain't free to walk the walk... That said, if you don't like hate crime laws, blame the Klan and the Nazis for their long history of terrorizing different parts of the community, because that's what those groups do, terrorize. Funny thing though, I remember from my time working for the legislature, the people opposing hate crimes legislation the most were also the ones screaming the loudest for cracking down hard on terrorists...


Here is an interesting factoid about hate crimes

Most perpetrators of hate crimes are under the age of 20.

(U.S. HATE CRIMES: Definitions and facts)

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Original post by LessBread Regarding the KKK and the Nazis, they are free to talk the talk, but they ain't free to walk the walk... That said, if you don't like hate crime laws, blame the Klan and the Nazis for their long history of terrorizing different parts of the community, because that's what those groups do, terrorize. Funny thing though, I remember from my time working for the legislature, the people opposing hate crimes legislation the most were also the ones screaming the loudest for cracking down hard on terrorists... Here is an interesting factoid about hate crimes Most perpetrators of hate crimes are under the age of 20. (U.S. HATE CRIMES: Definitions and facts)

When you mention that most perpetrators are under the age of 20, that doesn't surprise me in the least, and makes me feel at least a bit better about North America. However, I won't be blind to the fact that there are those who still commit hate crimes and the such OVER the age of 20.

Personally, I still think that the KKK and the Nazi Party shouldn't be even aloud to talk the talk. They're aloud to run around and say what they want, yet all the government can focus on is violent video games, sex on TV, and jailing people for posessing a small amount of marijuana? Makes you wonder.

Oh well, that's purely my personal opinion, don't take it otherwise. [smile]

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Original post by Captain Maple I'm all for punishing people who commit hate crimes, but what I don't get is, even though there is the freedom of speach, why in hell don't they make the KKK an illegal terrorist organization or something? Or what about the Nazi party? I mean, sure, freedom of speach, but seriously, a line has to be drawn somewhere.

I am in no way supportive of either the KKK or the nazi party. But that seems like a moronic statement even to me. "Im all for freedom of speech, as long as it doesnt offend my morals or point of view. In other words your free to say whatever you want. If I like it." Thats just the most contradictory statement Ive heard in a long time. As soon as you say the line has to be drawn somewhere, and you set it at what YOU consider reasonable, then a line of other people shows up to move the line to where they want it. Someday I say the current president is the dumbest man alive and I get punished for it, because thats where some guy thought the line should be drawn.

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Original post by Captain Maple ...why in hell don't they make the KKK an illegal terrorist organization or something? Or what about the Nazi party?

hahaha. The KKK IS classified as an illegal terrorist organization and has been declared on for a long time. There is no KKK. The national KKK was destroyed.

IIRC, there are 81 new break off KKK's, all claiming to be the original. Most are being monitored and most are simply rednecks that dress in sheets pretend they're badasses.

There is no Neo-Nazi hate 'group', it's a movement and not an organization. People don't pay dues to become a skinhead any less than goths pay to become a goth.

The Neo-Nazi movement started with leaders, but 'lessons learned' from other hate groups caused them to reoganize into small autonomous groups of people. Their movement is focused away from creating large groups that can be broken down by the government / law enforcement.

People who prefer the Nazi system of government, usually called National Socialism, rarely preach hate. I'm don't understand why people would prefer it, but I don't claim to understand people.

i'm all for punishment of people commiting hate crime. But i actually don't see why somebody who commit usual crime (heck, "love crime" as opposed to hate crime[grin]) and then write various books about it, get worldwide attention, etc. should be punished less...

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Original post by Captain Maple Personally, I still think that the KKK and the Nazi Party shouldn't be even aloud to talk the talk. They're aloud to run around and say what they want, yet all the government can focus on is violent video games, sex on TV, and jailing people for posessing a small amount of marijuana? Makes you wonder.

I think that's because violent video games, sex on TV and smoking mary jane make for issues with mass appeal. Polticians like those issues because it lets them generate free publicity holding hearings that never amount to anything. It lets them look like they are doing something when they really aren't. More specifically, it lets them look like they are changing things for the better. Of course they are doing things, but things that don't lead to changes. Running in place is still doing something. Raising these issues also gives them an opening to shakedown various associations for campaign contributions (at least in the USA).

In contrast, tracking down the KKK and the Nazis is so unsavory that even Homeland Security doesn't want to do it...

I am of the belief that most violent crimes are predicated on hate. Assault of any kind, murder, rape, etc. all begin with the fundamental hatred by one person of another.

I have to object to the statement that people who commit hate crimes are a greater danger to society. On a strictly statistical basis, given two people that commit random acts of violence, one being an equal opportunity assaulter (hehe, that's funny), and one being a "hate criminal," the former is a greater threat to society as a whole than the latter because they are attacking a larger set of the population, rather than just a subset of the population.

Serial killers generally pick a specific profile of person to attack, it might be children, it might be old ladies, it might be grocery store clerks. Yet we only charge them with a "hate" crime if that profile includes race in opposition to their own.

In America, it is uncostitutional to charge a person twice for the same crime. If you are charged with a crime, and beat the charges, you cannot be charged again for that same instance of criminal activity. O.J. Simpson could come out right now and say "I killed Nicole, and I loved it" and we couldn't do a damned thing about it. So called "hate crimes" double charge people for the same crime. If a white guy beats a black guy (I've personally never heard the reverse situation), then not only is the criminal rightly charged with assault, but also with a hate crime. Two charges for one crime. I also don't understand why we differentiate bank robbing from bank robbing with a gun. Suddenly, the crime becomes so much more sinister "OMG, he use a... gasp... GUN!" So the person is charged not only with the crime of robbing the bank, but also the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, even though s/he only ever did ONE crime.

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Original post by Binomine The national KKK was destroyed.

Not by the government, but by a civil lawsuit undertaken by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Original post by LessBread Quote: Original post by Captain Maple Personally, I still think that the KKK and the Nazi Party shouldn't be even aloud to talk the talk. They're aloud to run around and say what they want, yet all the government can focus on is violent video games, sex on TV, and jailing people for posessing a small amount of marijuana? Makes you wonder. I think that's because violent video games, sex on TV and smoking mary jane make for issues with mass appeal. Polticians like those issues because it lets them generate free publicity holding hearings that never amount to anything. It lets them look like they are doing something when they really aren't. More specifically, it lets them look like they are changing things for the better. Of course they are doing things, but things that don't lead to changes. Running in place is still doing something. Raising these issues also gives them an opening to shakedown various associations for campaign contributions (at least in the USA). In contrast, tracking down the KKK and the Nazis is so unsavory that even Homeland Security doesn't want to do it...

I see what you mean, and it's kind of sad really. But then again, they've convinced the public what the "real" problems are, and if they make the public think A is the real problem whereas B isn't such a big thing, and they "fix" A, well, more votes for them, right?

Smart, yet devious.

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Original post by Binomine Quote: Original post by Captain Maple ...why in hell don't they make the KKK an illegal terrorist organization or something? Or what about the Nazi party? hahaha. The KKK IS classified as an illegal terrorist organization and has been declared on for a long time. There is no KKK. The national KKK was destroyed.

incidentally, they were declared as such by former Civil War Union General, President of the United States, later to become President of the NRA, Ulysses S. Grant. This is one of the reasons why Michael Moore associating the NRA with the KKK is so universally wrong as to be laughable.

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Original post by capn_midnight I am of the belief that most violent crimes are predicated on hate. Assault of any kind, murder, rape, etc. all begin with the fundamental hatred by one person of another. I have to object to the statement that people who commit hate crimes are a greater danger to society. On a strictly statistical basis, given two people that commit random acts of violence, one being an equal opportunity assaulter (hehe, that's funny), and one being a "hate criminal," the former is a greater threat to society as a whole than the latter because they are attacking a larger set of the population, rather than just a subset of the population. Serial killers generally pick a specific profile of person to attack, it might be children, it might be old ladies, it might be grocery store clerks. Yet we only charge them with a "hate" crime if that profile includes race in opposition to their own. In America, it is uncostitutional to charge a person twice for the same crime. If you are charged with a crime, and beat the charges, you cannot be charged again for that same instance of criminal activity. O.J. Simpson could come out right now and say "I killed Nicole, and I loved it" and we couldn't do a damned thing about it. So called "hate crimes" double charge people for the same crime. If a white guy beats a black guy (I've personally never heard the reverse situation), then not only is the criminal rightly charged with assault, but also with a hate crime. Two charges for one crime. I also don't understand why we differentiate bank robbing from bank robbing with a gun. Suddenly, the crime becomes so much more sinister "OMG, he use a... gasp... GUN!" So the person is charged not only with the crime of robbing the bank, but also the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, even though s/he only ever did ONE crime.

agreed .

In pretty much any real case, you can charge with virtually unlimited amount of crimes.
Example: typical detective story [grin].
mrA shots mrB with a gun, mrB slowly dies, mrA tries to make it look like suicide and lies to police.
Murder + assault with deadly weapon + owning illegal weapon + not calling medical emmergency + lying to the police + false acussations (that attempt to make it look like suicide) ....

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Original post by capn_midnight I have to object to the statement that people who commit hate crimes are a greater danger to society. On a strictly statistical basis, given two people that commit random acts of violence, one being an equal opportunity assaulter (hehe, that's funny), and one being a "hate criminal," the former is a greater threat to society as a whole than the latter because they are attacking a larger set of the population, rather than just a subset of the population.

If you're gonna talk about statistical basis, then you ought to provide some statistics (otherwise you're just making things up). The logic of your assertion however, indicates that you don't get the whole "terrorizing the subgroup" thing at all.

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Original post by capn_midnight Serial killers generally pick a specific profile of person to attack, it might be children, it might be old ladies, it might be grocery store clerks. Yet we only charge them with a "hate" crime if that profile includes race in opposition to their own.

Are you familiar with any serial killers charged with hate crimes?

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Original post by capn_midnight In America, it is uncostitutional to charge a person twice for the same crime. If you are charged with a crime, and beat the charges, you cannot be charged again for that same instance of criminal activity. O.J. Simpson could come out right now and say "I killed Nicole, and I loved it" and we couldn't do a damned thing about it. So called "hate crimes" double charge people for the same crime. If a white guy beats a black guy (I've personally never heard the reverse situation), then not only is the criminal rightly charged with assault, but also with a hate crime. Two charges for one crime. I also don't understand why we differentiate bank robbing from bank robbing with a gun. Suddenly, the crime becomes so much more sinister "OMG, he use a... gasp... GUN!" So the person is charged not only with the crime of robbing the bank, but also the crime of assault with a deadly weapon, even though s/he only ever did ONE crime.

I don't think you understand the concept of double jeopardy. It doesn't mean what you say it does. A person can be charged with different counts for the same crime without violating double jeopardy. Double jeopardy means that a person can't be tried twice for the same crime. That is, once a person is found not guilty, they can't be re-tried on the same charges for the same crime.

serial killer also terrorizes some group (e.g. womans, or childs, etc.), usually of same race.
Why serial killer should be charged less?

Other than that, it would be lot better to make more descriptive name than "hate crime". Any crime is based on hate.

So in the movie its all wrong, because once she actually kills him at the end of the movie she could be tried for murdering WhateverAsshole on WhateverDate instead of murdering WhateverAsshole on WhateverPreviousDate, making it 2 different crimes technically?

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Original post by Johnny Watson A lot of people say hate crime legislation is unconstitutional, because it factors in the motive of the crime as a part of the crime, and punishes people for both their crime and the reason they did it.

I think it is very reasonable to factor motive into the punishment. Look at these two scenarios:

1) A guy kills Mr.X’s entire family and gets off on a technicality. Mr.X gets angry over this decision and takes justice into his own hands by killing the guy who killed his family.
2) Mr.Y pushes an elderly woman in front of bus because he thinks it will be funny.

Which guy should get the harsher sentence?

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In America, it is uncostitutional to charge a person twice for the same crime. If you are charged with a crime, and beat the charges, you cannot be charged again for that same instance of criminal activity. O.J. Simpson could come out right now and say "I killed Nicole, and I loved it" and we couldn't do a damned thing about it.

You are only partly correct. If substantail evidence is found, you can charge a person again for a crime. It has to be new evidence not presented in court.

A legal cofession would result in a new trial.

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Serial killers generally pick a specific profile of person to attack, it might be children, it might be old ladies, it might be grocery store clerks. Yet we only charge them with a "hate" crime if that profile includes race in opposition to their own.

There is no need, Serial killers are given the death penalty most of the time.