Hate Crime Statutes

Hate Crime Statutes PDF Author: Frank S. Pezzella
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319408429
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 87

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Book Description
​​​​​​This Brief provides a clearly outlined and accessible overview of the challenges in creating and enforcing hate crime legislation in the United States. As the author explains, while it is generally not controversial that hate crime behavior should be stopped, the question of how to do so effectively is complex. This volume begins with an introduction about defining hate crimes, and the history of hate crimes and hate crime legislation in the United States. The author shows arguments in favor of hate crime statutes, for example: hate crimes reach beyond their victims to members of the victims’ protected group and cohesion of society at large, and should therefore carry higher penalties.The author also shows arguments against hate crime statutes, for example that they sometimes contain enhanced penalties for certain specially protected groups and not others, and have a high potential for ambiguity and uneven enforcement. From a law enforcement perspective, the author explores the practical challenges in enforcing these statutes, and solutions to address them. Investigative techniques and resources vary significantly across police departments, as does training to identify and distinguish hate crimes from ordinary crimes. There is high potential for law enforcement and prosecutors’ personal biases to effect the classification of crimes as hate crimes. Law enforcement organizations are constantly faced with the dilemma of what and how to enforce legislation. This brief will be relevant for researchers in criminology and criminal justice, policy makers involved in hate crime legislation, social justice, and police-community relations, as well as related fields such as sociology, public policy and demography.​

Hate Crime Statutes

Hate Crime Statutes PDF Author: Frank S. Pezzella
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319408429
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 87

Get Book

Book Description
​​​​​​This Brief provides a clearly outlined and accessible overview of the challenges in creating and enforcing hate crime legislation in the United States. As the author explains, while it is generally not controversial that hate crime behavior should be stopped, the question of how to do so effectively is complex. This volume begins with an introduction about defining hate crimes, and the history of hate crimes and hate crime legislation in the United States. The author shows arguments in favor of hate crime statutes, for example: hate crimes reach beyond their victims to members of the victims’ protected group and cohesion of society at large, and should therefore carry higher penalties.The author also shows arguments against hate crime statutes, for example that they sometimes contain enhanced penalties for certain specially protected groups and not others, and have a high potential for ambiguity and uneven enforcement. From a law enforcement perspective, the author explores the practical challenges in enforcing these statutes, and solutions to address them. Investigative techniques and resources vary significantly across police departments, as does training to identify and distinguish hate crimes from ordinary crimes. There is high potential for law enforcement and prosecutors’ personal biases to effect the classification of crimes as hate crimes. Law enforcement organizations are constantly faced with the dilemma of what and how to enforce legislation. This brief will be relevant for researchers in criminology and criminal justice, policy makers involved in hate crime legislation, social justice, and police-community relations, as well as related fields such as sociology, public policy and demography.​

Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes PDF Author: James B. Jacobs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190286318
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In the early 1980s, a new category of crime appeared in the criminal law lexicon. In response to concerted advocacy-group lobbying, Congress and many state legislatures passed a wave of "hate crime" laws requiring the collection of statistics on, and enhancing the punishment for, crimes motivated by certain prejudices. This book places the evolution of the hate crime concept in socio-legal perspective. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter adopt a skeptical if not critical stance, maintaining that legal definitions of hate crime are riddled with ambiguity and subjectivity. No matter how hate crime is defined, and despite an apparent media consensus to the contrary, the authors find no evidence to support the claim that the United States is experiencing a hate crime epidemic--instead, they cast doubt on whether the number of hate crimes is even increasing. The authors further assert that, while the federal effort to establish a reliable hate crime accounting system has failed, data collected for this purpose have led to widespread misinterpretation of the state of intergroup relations in this country. The book contends that hate crime as a socio-legal category represents the elaboration of an identity politics now manifesting itself in many areas of the law. But the attempt to apply the anti-discrimination paradigm to criminal law generates problems and anomalies. For one thing, members of minority groups are frequently hate crime perpetrators. Moreover, the underlying conduct prohibited by hate crime law is already subject to criminal punishment. Jacobs and Potter question whether hate crimes are worse or more serious than similar crimes attributable to other anti-social motivations. They also argue that the effort to single out hate crime for greater punishment is, in effect, an effort to punish some offenders more seriously simply because of their beliefs, opinions, or values, thus implicating the First Amendment. Advancing a provocative argument in clear and persuasive terms, Jacobs and Potter show how the recriminalization of hate crime has little (if any) value with respect to law enforcement or criminal justice. Indeed, enforcement of such laws may exacerbate intergroup tensions rather than eradicate prejudice.

Tough on Hate?

Tough on Hate? PDF Author: Clara S. Lewis
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813562325
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Why do we know every gory crime scene detail about such victims as Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. and yet almost nothing about the vast majority of other hate crime victims? Now that federal anti-hate-crimes laws have been passed, why has the number of these crimes not declined significantly? To answer such questions, Clara S. Lewis challenges us to reconsider our understanding of hate crimes. In doing so, she raises startling issues about the trajectory of civil and minority rights. Tough on Hate is the first book to examine the cultural politics of hate crimes both within and beyond the law. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including personal interviews, unarchived documents, television news broadcasts, legislative debates, and presidential speeches—the book calls attention to a disturbing irony: the sympathetic attention paid to certain shocking hate crime murders further legitimizes an already pervasive unwillingness to act on the urgent civil rights issues of our time. Worse still, it reveals the widespread acceptance of ideas about difference, tolerance, and crime that work against future progress on behalf of historically marginalized communities.

Policing Hatred

Policing Hatred PDF Author: Jeannine Bell
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814798977
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Explores the interaction of race and law enforcement in the controversial area of hate crime. Bell includes in her work the experiences of detectives who are women, Black, Latino, and Asian American, exploring the impact of the racial identity of both the hate crime victim and the officers' handling of bias crimes.

State Statutes Governing Hate Crimes

State Statutes Governing Hate Crimes PDF Author: Alison M. Smith
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437941591
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Compiles state statutes pertaining to hate crimes. Hate crime have been defined as a ¿crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of property crime, the property that is the object of the crime¿ motivated by prejudice based on the ¿race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation¿ of the victim. States have various statutory provisions covering hate crimes which include ones that: (1) criminalize destruction of religious institutions; (2) criminalize bias-motivated violence and intimidation; (3) mandate reporting of hate crimes; (4) mandate training for state police officers in recognizing and reporting hate crimes; and (5) prohibit infringement on another person¿s civil rights. Charts and tables.

Punishing Hate

Punishing Hate PDF Author: Frederick M. Lawrence
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674040015
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Bias crimes are a scourge on our society. Is there a more terrifying image in the mind's eye than that of the burning cross? Punishing Hate examines the nature of bias-motivated violence and provides a foundation for understanding bias crimes and their treatment under the U.S. legal system. In this tightly argued book, Frederick Lawrence poses the question: Should bias crimes be punished more harshly than similar crimes that are not motivated by bias? He answers strongly in the affirmative, as do a great many scholars and citizens, but he is the first to provide a solid theoretical grounding for this intuitive agreement, and a detailed model for a bias crimes statute based on the theory. The book also acts as a strong corrective to recent claims that concern about hate crimes is overblown. A former prosecutor, Lawrence argues that the enhanced punishment of bias crimes, with a substantial federal law enforcement role, is not only permitted by doctrines of criminal and constitutional law but also mandated by our societal commitment to equality. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, from law and criminology, to sociology and social psychology, to today's news, Punishing Hate will have a lasting impact on the contentious debate over treatment of bias crimes in America.

Making Hate A Crime

Making Hate A Crime PDF Author: Valerie Jenness
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443144
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Violence motivated by racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia weaves a tragic pattern throughout American history. Fueled by recent high-profile cases, hate crimes have achieved an unprecedented visibility. Only in the past twenty years, however, has this kind of violence—itself as old as humankind—been specifically categorized and labeled as hate crime. Making Hate a Crime is the first book to trace the emergence and development of hate crime as a concept, illustrating how it has become institutionalized as a social fact and analyzing its policy implications. In Making Hate a Crime Valerie Jenness and Ryken Grattet show how the concept of hate crime emerged and evolved over time, as it traversed the arenas of American politics, legislatures, courts, and law enforcement. In the process, violence against people of color, immigrants, Jews, gays and lesbians, women, and persons with disabilities has come to be understood as hate crime, while violence against other vulnerable victims-octogenarians, union members, the elderly, and police officers, for example-has not. The authors reveal the crucial role social movements played in the early formulation of hate crime policy, as well as the way state and federal politicians defined the content of hate crime statutes, how judges determined the constitutional validity of those statutes, and how law enforcement has begun to distinguish between hate crime and other crime. Hate crime took on different meanings as it moved from social movement concept to law enforcement practice. As a result, it not only acquired a deeper jurisprudential foundation but its scope of application has been restricted in some ways and broadened in others. Making Hate a Crime reveals how our current understanding of hate crime is a mix of political and legal interpretations at work in the American policymaking process. Jenness and Grattet provide an insightful examination of the birth of a new category in criminal justice: hate crime. Their findings have implications for emerging social problems such as school violence, television-induced violence, elder-abuse, as well as older ones like drunk driving, stalking, and sexual harassment. Making Hate a Crime presents a fresh perspective on how social problems and the policies devised in response develop over time. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology

Gendered Hate

Gendered Hate PDF Author: Jessica P. Hodge
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 155553757X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
A unique analysis of hate crime law through the lens of gender

Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes PDF Author: David L. Hudson
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1604134372
Category : HATE CRIMES--UNITED STATES.
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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Book Description
Hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by hate or prejudice, whether it is based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. Many people argue that these crimes should carry extra penalties because, in the words of former Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 'this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm...bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest'. Opponents of hate-crime laws argue that extra penalties amount to prosecuting people for thought crimes. ""Hate Crimes"" examines both sides of this debate.

Hate Crimes

Hate Crimes PDF Author: Thomas Streissguth
Publisher: Facts on File
ISBN: 9780816073658
Category : HATE CRIMES--UNITED STATES.
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
When a criminal offense includes the element of bias it is regarded as a hate crime. In 1993 the Supreme Court approved penalty enhancement schemes for hate crimes in Wisconsin v. Mitchell. Recognizing these crimes as acts committed against entire communities, 45 U.S. states now impose additional penalties for hate crimes. The Supreme Court and state courts have put important constitutional limits on the enforcement and prosecution of hate crimes statutes, and Congress has repeatedly debated whether to enact a federal hate-crimes law. But lawmakers, courts, and ordinary Americans continue to disagree over which crime victims hate crimes laws should protect. Meanwhile, critics insist that the law should make no distinction between bias crimes and ordinary crimes. ""Hate Crimes, Revised Edition"" provides students and general readers with the resources necessary to define, understand, and research one of the most contentious topics in the United States today. A glossary, appendixes, and a chronology round out this accessible and timely new resource. Coverage includes: a complete background on the incidence of hate crimes; an overview of hate-crime legislation and judicial opinions regarding these laws at both the state and national levels; the public debate over the desirability, constitutionality, and justifiability of penalty enhancement for perpetrators of hate crimes; the public debate over whether hate-crimes laws should protect crime victims based on disability, status as an immigrant, sexual orientation, or gender identity; and extracts from documents such as the FBI Uniform Crime Report (2006), the Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2007), and the Joint Statement Before the House Committee of the Judiciary Concerning the Jena Six (2007).