Hate crimes

When I visiting friends in Austin years ago, George Bush was the Governor. We drove down past the state house and they told me about how pissed they were that he was about to veto a hate crimes bill.

Plus ca change

My friends were pretty pissed. They were, perhaps not coincidentally, lesbians. When asked for my opinion, I had to say that I don't support hate crimes legislation either.

Do I find it somehow more deplorable that a person is attacked or killed because they're different (black, gay, female, male, of a different religion) rather than because they were involved in a drug deal gone wrong? Yes. I guess I do. It offends my sensibilities. It seems somehow more meaningless.

But I do think they should be punished more for it? Not necessarily. Although I think we as a society should have discretion to punish more harshly for truly disgusting and particularly heinous crimes like the murder of James Byrd, Jr - which did happen to be racially motivated. But I don't think we should necessarily slap more time on if the assailant and the victim come from two different religions, races, ethnicities or sexual orientations.

Basically, I believe that there ought to be equal protection under the law. And when that equal protection doesn't manage to actually protect someone, then I believe that their life is worth the same as the the next person's and that and the nature of the crime itself - as proven by discernable facts - should determine the punishment. I don't think that speculation as to prejudice in an assailant's mind should figure.

But we do have to acknowledge that there is inequality in sentencing. For example, people who commit crimes against black people in the US are punished less harshly (generally) than people who commit crimes against whites. Does this mean we need hate crimes legislation? Nope. Because this discrimination, this undervaluation of black life, limb and property applies whether the perpetrator is black or white.

In particular, victim characteristics are important determinants of sentencing among vehicular homicides, in which victims are basically random and in which the optimal punishment model predicts that victim characteristics should be ignored. Among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women get 59 percent longer sentences. Drivers who kill blacks get 60 percent shorter sentences. (from an Abstract in The Journal of Legal Studies)

Normal vehicular homicide is not a hate crime, but yet killing a black person (or a man) leads to shorter sentences. Let's deal with this before we start trying to look inside people's heads and hearts.

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On the other hand, I don't see why if we are going to pass hate crime legislation we should exclude sexual orientation. Though I'd prefer we stopped with the me-too-ism of victimhood and just dealt fairly with crime and punishment. Let's have some research and peer review of sentencing judiciary rather than an inadequate legal patch.