Hate Crimes
Crimes of violence motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation have always been a part of the American political landscape. At various times legislative efforts have been made to address the problem, such as laws passed in the late 1960s making it a federal crime to interfere violently with black Americans exercising their legal civil rights. In the 1980s, an American society trying to assimilate the changes wrought by the various liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s began to look for stronger ways to show its intolerance for bias-motivated crimes. Defining these crimes as "hate crimes," some groups began to lobby for them to be treated as more heinous than crimes not motivated by the perpetrator's prejudice and to be punished more severely.
Political organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the New York City Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project began to keep records of the occurrence of bias-motivated crimes. Pressured by such groups and by the victims of hate crimes, the federal government passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. Passed in 1990, and later extended at least through 2002, the act requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation to monitor and keep reliable statistics on crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion, ethnic or national origin, disability, or sexual orientation. In 1996, these statistics showed that 8,759 hate crimes were reported, the majority of them racially motivated.
More than forty states have enacted hate crimes statutes requiring stiffer penalties for a crime if it is categorized as a hate crime. These laws are controversial for many reasons. Conservatives minimize the occurrence of hate crimes, accusing interested groups of inflating the figures. They ridicule the laws as "identity politics," insisting that "thought police" will be required to prove motivation. Even some liberals express concern that the laws potentially interfere with free speech. Racial bias, homophobia, and other prejudices are cultural problems, they say, and must be solved by education rather than legislation. Supporters of hate crime legislation argue that hate crimes deserve greater penalties because they have more serious implications for society than crimes which are not motivated by bias. They cite the fear engendered in targeted groups as a whole by the crimes of intimidation against them, and point to Nazi attempts at the genocide of Jews, Gypsies, gays, and other groups as an example of what can occur in a society that tolerates hate crimes.
Another element of controversy is the inclusion of sexual minorities as a protected group. Of the states that do have hate crime laws, only about half include sexual orientation in their wording. While right-wing groups and politicians resist any sort of legitimization of gay lifestyles, many gay and lesbian groups continue to fight for state and federal hate crime laws that will include crimes against them.
Part of the problem of enacting hate crime legislation lies in attempting to define hate crimes. While beatings, murders, and firebombings of churches, synagogues, or community centers are clear examples of criminal activity, some actions are less obvious. Some states have included cross burnings and swastika displays under their hate crime laws only to be challenged in court for limiting free speech. Many groups, especially colleges and universities, have instituted codes of speech in an effort to outlaw racial epithets and slurs but many argue that the abridgment of free speech is not the answer. Many feminists have lobbied to have rape and domestic violence included as crimes of hate against women. That definition was included in the 1993 Violence Against Women Act, but the hate-crime wording was eliminated in the final version. Though hate-crime legislation was primarily introduced in the hopes of curbing the cross-burnings, synagogue-bombings, and beatings associated with racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia, it also covers any bias-related crime. Ironically, one of the first supreme court decisions supporting hate-crime laws dealt with an African-American perpetrator in a crime against whites.
Though the debate goes on over the best way to deal with hate crimes, it seems to be clear from statistics that bias-motivated crime continues to be a global problem. Whether the perpetrators are angry, often disenfranchised, individuals or members of an organized hate group such as the Aryan Nation or the Ku Klux Klan, perhaps the debate itself is an important step in eliminating these crimes. The light of exposure robs them of their most frightening and powerful aspect—the secret complicity of society.
Further Reading:
Bowling, Benjamin. Violent Racism: Victimization, Policing and Social Context. Oxford, New York, Clarendon Press, 1998.
Jost, Kenneth. "Background: Violence and Prejudice." C. Q. Researcher. Vol. 3, No. 1, January 8, 1993, 7.
Kelley, Robert J., and Jess Maghan, eds. Hate Crime: The Global Politics of Polarization. Carbondale, Illinois, Southern Illinois University Press, 1998.
Lawrence, Frederick M. Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes under American Law. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1999.
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