NCJ Number
176143
Date Published
1998
Length
221 pages
Annotation
This book places the evolution of the hate crime concept in socio-legal perspective.
Abstract
Legal definitions of hate crime are ambiguous and lack objectivity. There is no evidence to support the claim that the United States is experiencing a hate crime epidemic, no matter what definition is accepted, or even that the number of hate crimes is even increasing. While the Federal effort to establish a reliable hate crime accounting system has failed, data collected for that purpose have led to widespread misinterpretation of the state of intergroup relations in America. Hate crime as a socio-legal category represents the elaboration of an identity politics manifesting itself in many areas of the law, and it is questionable whether hate crimes are worse or more serious than similar crimes attributable to other anti-social motivations. 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. Tables, notes, bibliography, cases cited, index