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biccat wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:That's not the thesis he was putting forward.

You're right. His thesis appears to be: by reducing hate crimes, we reduce the percentage of hate crimes. By reducing all crime, we don't reduce the percentage of hate crimes. This thesis was based on an assumption of facts.

I took those assumptions and showed how his thesis was flawed.

Let me illustrate the argument with a table.

I have made up the figures here to demonstrate the mathematics.

Assumptions
1. Some people have a tendency to commit violent crimes.
2. Some of these violent criminals have their tendency to commit violent crimes increased by their hatred of specific groups such as people with different coloured skin or sexual preferences. Also, people who are not otherwise violent, become so when presented with targets in the hated groups. The phenomenon of rage murder of homosexuals is an example of this in action. Thus, people in the hated groups are more likely to suffer from violent crime than the average of the population as a whole.
3. This leads to a 10% increase in violent crime towards victim groups.
4. Society wishes for crime to be reduced to the minimum practical.
5. People's tendency to commit violent crime is reduced by the severity of the punishment inflicted.

Level of penalty is a number I made up to denote punishment from a level of nothing (0) to the parents being executed before the criminal can be born (10).
Number of crimes is per 100,000 of the involved population per year.



As you can see, although the tendency to commit crime is reduced by increasing punishment, "hated" groups still suffer more crime than the population as a whole.

The purpose of "hate crime" legislation is to increase the level of penalty for "hate" crimes, in order to counteract the tendency of some people to commit additional violent crimes from hatred.

biccat wrote:Hate crimes are bad laws. They either punish legal behavior based on the intent of the actor or make certain crimes worse based on the mindset of the actor. In both cases, you're punishing someone for thinking "bad thoughts."

How exactly are you defining 'bad laws' here - intent matters for an awful lot of crimes, and have been part of the legal tradition for longer than the US has been around. It's not just obscure crimes you might not have heard of, murder is treated differently based on intent - an accidental killing, killing in self-defense, killing because you got really angry, and killing after you planned for weeks all get very different treatment in the courts, for example. I

Whenever I've seen someone bring up this argument, it's consistently only 'hate crimes' laws that the objection applies to, so I'm wondering if you object to 'bad thoughts' laws in general, or only this specific case? I don't like hate crime laws in general, but your objection doesn't make sense to me unless you're rejecting the use of intent in crimes in general, which would be a huge, sweeping change to the legal system.

I think the world may have to end soon as I agree with you entirely. "Hate crimes" do nothing other than to move the goal posts. You beat up someone to steal their phone and they happen to be a different colour, or gay, etc, and suddenly it is a hate crime and the penalties are far greater?

If you beat up someone to steal their phone, in many jurisdictions that moves you from simple battery to robbery because of your intent, so suddenly it's a robbery and the penalites are far greater. The punishment for crimes, and sometimes even the name of the crime, changes a lot based on intent.

Kilkrazy wrote:As you can see, although the tendency to commit crime is reduced by increasing punishment, "hated" groups still suffer more crime than the population as a whole.

The purpose of "hate crime" legislation is to increase the level of penalty for "hate" crimes, in order to counteract the tendency of some people to commit additional violent crimes from hatred.

First, I would take exception to the idea that hate crimes outnumber non-hate crimes. However, even this assumption illustrates my point.

I agree with you that the purpose of hate crime legislation is to decrease the frequency of hate crimes. However, it's a statistical game, not an effective deterrant. In your table, every step represents a decrease in the number of hate crimes committed, but the statistics are the same (52% hate crimes). Here is a table that illustrates the hypothetical decreases in crime due to hate crime legislation (assuming the same punishments yield the same rewards:

Penalty Regular Hate % hate # crimes % reduction in crime 0 100 110 52% 210 0.00 1 100 99 50% 199 5.24 2 100 88 47% 188 10.48 3 100 77 44% 177 15.71 4 100 66 40% 166 20.95 5 100 55 35% 155 26.19 6 100 44 31% 144 31.43 7 100 33 25% 133 36.67 8 100 22 18% 122 41.90 9 100 11 10% 111 47.14 10 100 0 0% 100 52.38

As you can see, the number of hate crimes are decreasing as punishment increases. But for every 10% reduction in hate crimes, the percent reduction in overall crime is only 5% (or, 1/10 of the total percent of crimes that are hate crimes). At 100% deterrance, you still have 100 non-hate based crimes that are committed. With your table, 100% deterrance prevents all crime.

Therefore, passing hate crime legislation does not do more than increasing punishment to address crime. It simply changes the statistics.

biccat wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:As you can see, although the tendency to commit crime is reduced by increasing punishment, "hated" groups still suffer more crime than the population as a whole.

The purpose of "hate crime" legislation is to increase the level of penalty for "hate" crimes, in order to counteract the tendency of some people to commit additional violent crimes from hatred.

First, I would take exception to the idea that hate crimes outnumber non-hate crimes. However, even this assumption illustrates my point.

I agree with you that the purpose of hate crime legislation is to decrease the frequency of hate crimes. However, it's a statistical game, not an effective deterrant. In your table, every step represents a decrease in the number of hate crimes committed, but the statistics are the same (52% hate crimes). Here is a table that illustrates the hypothetical decreases in crime due to hate crime legislation (assuming the same punishments yield the same rewards:

Penalty Regular Hate % hate # crimes % reduction in crime 0 100 110 52% 210 0.00 1 100 99 50% 199 5.24 2 100 88 47% 188 10.48 3 100 77 44% 177 15.71 4 100 66 40% 166 20.95 5 100 55 35% 155 26.19 6 100 44 31% 144 31.43 7 100 33 25% 133 36.67 8 100 22 18% 122 41.90 9 100 11 10% 111 47.14 10 100 0 0% 100 52.38

As you can see, the number of hate crimes are decreasing as punishment increases. But for every 10% reduction in hate crimes, the percent reduction in overall crime is only 5% (or, 1/10 of the total percent of crimes that are hate crimes). At 100% deterrance, you still have 100 non-hate based crimes that are committed. With your table, 100% deterrance prevents all crime.

Therefore, passing hate crime legislation does not do more than increasing punishment to address crime. It simply changes the statistics.

I think your table should look like this.



If correct, it would seem that you have made an assumption that non hate crimes will not be reduced by increasing the penalty on them.

I do not claim that hate crimes outnumber non-hate crimes. I make the assumption that hated groups suffer the same average rate of crime as society as a whole, plus some extra. Thus the rate per 100,000 available victims is higher.

Kilkrazy wrote:I think your table should look like this.

If correct, it would seem that you have made an assumption that non hate crimes will not be reduced by increasing the penalty.

Yes, that's correct.

And if the penalty is only for hate crimes, then non-hate crimes would not be reduced by increasing the penalty.

edit: removed table because dakka behaves badly with large images.

My assumption is that increasing the penalty for all violent crime will reduce all violent crime, however that hate crime runs at a higher rate than average and needs an extra penalty to bring it down to average.

I did not attempt to calculate a suggested rate of extra penalty on top of the normal penalty, since the figures I used were chosen only to demonstrate a mathematical argument.

Kilkrazy wrote:My assumption is that increasing the penalty for all violent crime will reduce all violent crime, however that hate crime runs at a higher rate than average and needs an extra penalty to bring it down to average.

I did not attempt to calculate a suggested rate of extra penalty on top of the normal penalty, since the figures I used were chosen only to demonstrate a mathematical argument.

My point is...why bring hate crime down to average (and I don't agree that it runs above average), when you can reduce all crime equally?

Is it better to have 100 crimes, 50 of which are hate crimes or 1000 crimes, 400 of which are hate crimes?

In the first example, 50% of all crimes are hate crimes (shock, horror!). In the 2nd, only 40% are hate crimes. The second is not an improvement over the first.

biccat wrote:My point is...why bring hate crime down to average (and I don't agree that it runs above average), when you can reduce all crime equally?

You can only do this to a certain point, as you can never eliminate crime entirely. We (as a society) choose how draconian and severe we want our criminal justice system to be as a whole.

We also tweak parts of it on occasion to attempt to bring certain outliers into line, or deal more harshly with types of crimes we think should be discouraged even more highly. Three Strikes laws target repeat offenders. Stricter sentences for crimes committed using handguns target criminals who use handguns. Hate Crime laws attempt to reduce the number of crimes committed out of "isms", relative to the general rate of crime.

I am sure that we both agree that it would be preferable for all crime to be reduced as much as possible.

That being the case, if hate crime is an extra on top of normal violent crime -- which I agree is arguable -- what would be wrong with an extra penalty for hate crimes, as long as non-hate crimes are properly suppressed.

Kilkrazy wrote:I am sure that we both agree that it would be preferable for all crime to be reduced as much as possible.

That being the case, if hate crime is an extra on top of normal violent crime -- which I agree is arguable -- what would be wrong with an extra penalty for hate crimes, as long as non-hate crimes are properly suppressed.

Well the issue arises that the exact same circimstances result in less punishment if some people are victims vs. others, when the reality is, all of the crimes being discussed are hate crimes. Just because i hate you because of your skin color vs. someone else being hated because of what clothes they were wearing still means someone was beaten down because of hate.

Kilkrazy wrote:I am sure that we both agree that it would be preferable for all crime to be reduced as much as possible.

That being the case, if hate crime is an extra on top of normal violent crime -- which I agree is arguable -- what would be wrong with an extra penalty for hate crimes, as long as non-hate crimes are properly suppressed.

Wait, I didn't say that hate crime isn't "an extra on top of normal violent crime," I just said that I dispute that the incidence of hate crime is higher than the incidence of violent crime. I agree that there are crimes that would not have been committed but for some -ism.

In your table, you said 100 regular crimes and 110 hate crimes. I assume that meant a total of 210 crimes per year. Did you mean 100 regular crimes + 10 hate crimes?

Anyway, hate crimes are bad because:
1) it's inefficient. By increasing penalties for certain crimes and not others you are denying resources to other prosecutions where they could be useful.
2) it places value on victims of crime based on their race/sex/religion/whatever, which inherently devalues victims that are not targetted based on those characteristics, which is discriminating.
3) it punishes people for "bad thoughts" not "bad actions." In a brief response to BearersOfSalvation's point above, there's a difference between specific intent crimes and hate crimes. In specific intent crimes, the purpose of the law is not to prevent the thought (I should rob this guy, I want to murder my wife), but rather to prevent the actions (robbery, murder). The purpose of hate crimes is to prevent "bad thoughts."

Further, the evolution of the law into specific intent crimes wasn't from scaling up the laws, it was for scaling down punishments. Homicide used to have one punishment: death. Eventually, it was reasoned that homicide with malice was worse than accidental or unintentional homicide (murder and manslaughter). The latter only got you life in prison. Then we decided that certain motivations for crimes weren't as bad, and didn't deserve the death penalty (reckless disregard, etc.).

We punish a contract killer more severely than a person who catches their spouse in bed with another person and kills them in a jealous rage, and in turn punish that person more severely than a driver who accidentally kills someone out of negligence.

We consider premeditated murder for hire sufficiently reprehensible and detrimental to society to accord it more strict judgment and harsher punishment. Just as we do people who assault or murder people out of a hatred for their skin color or sexual preference. We consider this act even more reprehensible and detrimental to society than a "regular" assault or murder.

Mannahnin wrote:We punish a contract killer more severely than a person who catches their spouse in bed with another person and kills them in a jealous rage, and in turn punish that person more severely than a driver who accidentally kills someone out of negligence.

We consider premeditated murder for hire sufficiently reprehensible and detrimental to society to accord it more strict judgment and harsher punishment. Just as we do people who assault or murder people out of a hatred for their skin color or sexual preference. We consider this act even more reprehensible and detrimental to society than a "regular" assault or murder.

Actually we don't. Contract killer is premeditated which means they planned it out. Manslaughter generally has lesser symptoms as a mitigating factor - that they are literally out of their mind at the time.

Did you just read my post so badly that you got it entirely backwards?

That's what I just said. We punish premeditated murderers more harshly than people who kill by accident. That's differentiating between the motive/thinking behind the crime.

Mannahnin wrote:But then your disagreement is not with KK, it's with some fundamental assumptions underpinning the justice system. In reality, and in justice, motive matters.

I think that's the issue. It depends on where your focus lies, motive or end result of the act.

And yes, I suppose I do have a few issues with the judicial system.

There is no justice. Just us.

Monster Rain wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:But then your disagreement is not with KK, it's with some fundamental assumptions underpinning the justice system. In reality, and in justice, motive matters.

I think that's the issue. It depends on where your focus lies, motive or end result of the act.

And yes, I suppose I do have a few issues with the judicial system.

I don't mean to suggest that there aren't flaws with the justice system, or with this concept in practice. I think Three Strikes laws can be brutally unjust in some situations, and inappropriately tie the judge's hands in terms of exercising good judgment in sentencing.

But in general I don't see any reason why we can't bear both motive and end result in mind. In general we do it all the time.

Monster Rain wrote:Why not punish all violent crimes that harshly, though?

The impact of a crime is not just on the victim, but on the greater community. When a guy is beaten up because he was taking money out of an ATM at 3 in the morning, well the community now realises that it isn't safe to take money out of an ATM at 3am. Which isn't good, but it's a small thing really.

When someone is beaten up because they were transgendered, they don't get to make a simple choice like 'stop going to the ATM at 3am', they have to stop being who they are, or live in fear. The crime simply is worse, because not only did the victim suffer, that whole minority community is now forced to fear for their own lives.

And the fear is real, the average American has a 1/18,000 chance of being murdered, for the average transgendered person the rate is 1/12. So yeah, when someone commits a crime and puts that kind of fear through the community, there is justification for greater punishment because the crime really is worse.


That said, I'm not sure this works very well in practice, because the laws are too quickly applied to any crime where the victim was a part of a minority. Really, there needs to be a strict standard of proof that the crime was committed because the victim was a minority, and from what I've read I'm not sure that's always the case. But that's really a case for making hate crime legislation better, not for removing it entirely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:The corollary to this is that increased punishment (for hate crimes) decreases the incidence of (hate crime) violence.

If so, why not increase punishment for all crimes, thereby reducing the incidence of all violence?

Greater punishment is frequently shown to have little or no effect on crime rates.

The point is not to punish the offender in order to reduce the frequency of crime, but to recognise the impact of a hate crime on society as a whole is far greater than a crime motivated by personal or property reasons, and so give a greater punishment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sexiest_hero wrote:They should go to jail, but stil it was a "Man" trying to get into the ladies room. Trans gender gets tricky at the public bathroom level.

Only if you're deathly afraid someone might see your peepee.

Mannahnin wrote:But in general I don't see any reason why we can't bear both motive and end result in mind.

Fair enough.

I don't see any reason why every citizen shouldn't enjoy the perceived benefit of increased sentences for violent crimes that Hate Crime legislation provides.

Sebter broke it down pretty well too. In many ways a crime against a minority based on their inherent qualities is more damaging to the community; so the crime itself is actually more severe.

I don't see why every citizen shouldn't enjoy the benefit of reduced rates of being a victim of violent crime that my being a white male provides.

Mannahnin wrote:I don't see why every citizen shouldn't enjoy the benefit of reduced rates of being a victim of violent crime that my being a white male provides.

Do you know what the rates of having one's BMW stolen are among White Males?

Might be related to the rate of BMW ownership.

I'll just not say anything.

Monster Rain wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I don't see why every citizen shouldn't enjoy the benefit of reduced rates of being a victim of violent crime that my being a white male provides.

Do you know what the rates of having one's BMW stolen are among White Males?

Do you know that the rate of Ice Cream sales are directly proportional to the occurence of rape?

AvatarForm wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I don't see why every citizen shouldn't enjoy the benefit of reduced rates of being a victim of violent crime that my being a white male provides.

Do you know what the rates of having one's BMW stolen are among White Males?

Do you know that the rate of Ice Cream sales are directly proportional to the occurence of rape?

*Looks at tub of vanilla fudge*

Um...

Monster Rain wrote:Do you know what the rates of having one's BMW stolen are among White Males?

Crime disproportionately impacts the poor more than the rich.

No comment on my answer to you, above? I mean, if BMWs get stolen all the time, then ultimately you need to pay more for insurance of your BMW and stop leaving it on the street. But if you keep getting assaulted because you're gay...

biccat wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:I am sure that we both agree that it would be preferable for all crime to be reduced as much as possible.

That being the case, if hate crime is an extra on top of normal violent crime -- which I agree is arguable -- what would be wrong with an extra penalty for hate crimes, as long as non-hate crimes are properly suppressed.

Wait, I didn't say that hate crime isn't "an extra on top of normal violent crime," I just said that I dispute that the incidence of hate crime is higher than the incidence of violent crime. I agree that there are crimes that would not have been committed but for some -ism.

In your table, you said 100 regular crimes and 110 hate crimes. I assume that meant a total of 210 crimes per year. Did you mean 100 regular crimes + 10 hate crimes?

In my assumptions I said the table was crimes per 100,000 of the affected population per year.

I.e. the average rate of violent crime is 100 per 100,000 of the general population (everyone), but the rate among hated groups is 110 per 100,000. In other words, hated groups are more likely to be victims of crime than average.

biccat wrote:Anyway, hate crimes are bad because:
1) it's inefficient. By increasing penalties for certain crimes and not others you are denying resources to other prosecutions where they could be useful.

The justice system does not have unlimited resources, so there will always be competition of this kind. That does not argue specifically against the prosecution of hate crimes. It argues for an examination of which sorts of crimes are more damaging to society, to prioritise efficiently. For example, there are heavier penalties for selling cannabis within a certain distance of a school. That may be a sensible precaution against selling drugs to children, or it may be a waste of money.

biccat wrote:2) it places value on victims of crime based on their race/sex/religion/whatever, which inherently devalues victims that are not targetted based on those characteristics, which is discriminating.

Your assumption here is like saying that drunk drivers who have accidents should not be discriminated against compared to non-drunk drivers who have accidents, although drunk drivers have more accidents.

biccat wrote:3) it punishes people for "bad thoughts" not "bad actions." In a brief response to BearersOfSalvation's point above, there's a difference between specific intent crimes and hate crimes. In specific intent crimes, the purpose of the law is not to prevent the thought (I should rob this guy, I want to murder my wife), but rather to prevent the actions (robbery, murder). The purpose of hate crimes is to prevent "bad thoughts."

It punishes people who commit violent crimes from bias. The purpose is to reduce crimes committed against groups who suffer higher rates of crime because of bias.

biccat wrote:Further, the evolution of the law into specific intent crimes wasn't from scaling up the laws, it was for scaling down punishments. Homicide used to have one punishment: death. Eventually, it was reasoned that homicide with malice was worse than accidental or unintentional homicide (murder and manslaughter). The latter only got you life in prison. Then we decided that certain motivations for crimes weren't as bad, and didn't deserve the death penalty (reckless disregard, etc.).

If I understand the point correctly, you are arguing that crimes committed from malice should be more heavily punished than crimes not committed from malice. Don't the hate crime laws intend to do that?

Kilkrazy wrote:In my assumptions I said the table was crimes per 100,000 of the affected population per year.

I.e. the average rate of violent crime is 100 per 100,000 of the general population (everyone), but the rate among hated groups is 110 per 100,000. In other words, hated groups are more likely to be victims of crime than average.

Well then you're just playing games with statistics.

I would rather have less crime overall than simply less hate crime.

Kilkrazy wrote:The justice system does not have unlimited resources, so there will always be competition of this kind. That does not argue specifically against the prosecution of hate crimes. It argues for an examination of which sorts of crimes are more damaging to society, to prioritise efficiently. For example, there are heavier penalties for selling cannabis within a certain distance of a school. That may be a sensible precaution against selling drugs to children, or it may be a waste of money.

Yes, but adding layers of hate crime legislation makes hate crimes more costly to prosecute. The standard for assault is easy. Adding on motivation makes the case much more difficult, consuming more resources (police & prosecutor time).

If it takes 50 hours to prosecute a standard assault and 60 hours to prosecute a hate crime, then for every 5 hate crimes assaults you could have prosecuted 6 regular assaults.

biccat wrote:2) it places value on victims of crime based on their race/sex/religion/whatever, which inherently devalues victims that are not targetted based on those characteristics, which is discriminating.

Kilkrazy wrote:Your assumption here is like saying that drunk drivers who have accidents should not be discriminated against compared to non-drunk drivers who have accidents, although drunk drivers have more accidents.

Um, no I'm not. I'm saying that victims of drunk drivers should not receive additional benefits over victims of non-drunk drivers. Should the response time for drunk driving accidents be 10 minutes, and 12 minutes for non-drunk driving? This would prioritize those victims of drunk drivers and help deter drunk drivers (since the police would be there faster).

Kilkrazy wrote:It punishes people who commit violent crimes from bias. The purpose is to reduce crimes committed against groups who suffer higher rates of crime because of bias.

Yes, I agree. But that means taking resources from elsewhere to prosecute bias crimes. And the only groups who are protected are those who have the political clout to get their specific differences recognized.

Kilkrazy wrote:If I understand the point correctly, you are arguing that crimes committed from malice should be more heavily punished than crimes not committed from malice. Don't the hate crime laws intend to do that?

You don't. I wasn't making a point, simply providing historical background. The reason we have murder and manslaughter isn't because we decided that intent-based crimes were worse, it is because we decided that non-intent based crimes weren't as bad. It's a relatively fine distinction, but an important one.

sebster wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:Do you know what the rates of having one's BMW stolen are among White Males?

Crime disproportionately impacts the poor more than the rich.

Yeah, maybe I'm dating myself here but the Beemer was for a time the archetypal "Upper class white man's" car.

sebster wrote:No comment on my answer to you, above? I mean, if BMWs get stolen all the time, then ultimately you need to pay more for insurance of your BMW and stop leaving it on the street. But if you keep getting assaulted because you're gay...

Sorry man. I thought that much of what you wrote was pretty reasonable and well said. I can see your point of view clearly; however, I still wonder why the perceived benefit shouldn't be available for everyone.

sebster wrote:That said, I'm not sure this works very well in practice, because the laws are too quickly applied to any crime where the victim was a part of a minority. Really, there needs to be a strict standard of proof that the crime was committed because the victim was a minority, and from what I've read I'm not sure that's always the case. But that's really a case for making hate crime legislation better, not for removing it entirely.

I thought this was a really good point.

sebster wrote:The point is not to punish the offender in order to reduce the frequency of crime, but to recognise the impact of a hate crime on society as a whole is far greater than a crime motivated by personal or property reasons, and so give a greater punishment.

I could be misreading this, but it seems like you're saying it's more of a gesture by society to show its disapproval of Hate Crimes and not actually be a deterrent. This is perhaps a more honest approach and one that I suppose makes more sense to me.

Frazzled wrote:Why exactly is this not being investigated for being a hate crime?

Because LGBT people are second class citizens in many peoples' eyes, not deserving of the same rights as everyone else?