NCJ Number
179429
Date Published
1998
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This essay considers the formulating, writing, and lobbying for hate crime legislation and implications of American hate crime jurisprudence.
Abstract
Politics and constitutional concerns probably pose an insuperable barrier to passing laws punishing group libel and hate speech in the United States. However, since 1980 there has been a steady movement among States to criminalize, recriminalize and increase punishments for intentionally injurious behaviors that are motivated by certain types of prejudice and hate. The essay considers what accounts for the proliferation of hate crime laws; the types of hate crime laws; the extent to which those laws are consistent with traditional criminal law principles and the extent to which they are a departure or innovation; problems, if any, that those laws create for criminal justice administration; problems the laws should be expected to solve; and what, if anything, those laws can reveal about the feasibility of using criminal law to suppress group libel and hate speech. Notes