Tuesday, June 29, 2010

2560...All Crimes Are Hate Crimes

Most anyhow.

That is why the whole concept of hate crimes is disturbing to me.

I think that bias should be a mitigating factor at both charging and sentencing time but I don't think that there should be a sep set of laws.

The criminal code is just too expansive as it is. And hate can be defined narrowly or widely.

To that end this essay from Saturday's Globe and Mail is worth reading:

Pulling hate out of the air

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Jun. 25, 2010 8:59PM EDT

Last updated on Friday, Jun. 25, 2010 10:00PM EDT


Most people probably believe they can spot a hate crime when they see or hear it: racial violence, genocide promotion, poisonous graffiti. But what about mortgage fraud?

Prosecutors in New York City have recently begun using hate crime law to target women who befriend and defraud elderly men of their life savings or homes. It may seem an innovative way to combat a heinous crime, but broadening hate in this way diminishes the importance of crimes motivated by real odium.

New York's Hate Crimes Act calls for the application of specific hate crime penalties in cases where a crime is motivated by a "belief or perception" held about the victim as a member of an identifiable group. As the women in question apparently believed old men were easy marks for their fraudulent schemes, prosecutors have successfully used this law to obtain stiffer jail sentences than would have otherwise applied. One district attorney told the New York Times using hate crime legislation in this way represents "an epiphany."

Headache is more like it.

Robbing of old men of their life savings is a serious crime. And it deserves serious attention. But twisting hate crime legislation into a weapon against it risks considerably more damage.

Consider that last week Statistics Canada released figures showing hate crimes reported to police in Canada rose 35 per cent between 2007 and 2008. It seems a troubling development worthy of attention. And yet such numbers would be meaningless if the increase was solely due to prosecutorial innovation.

There is no evidence Canada's hate crime sentencing provisions have been used to the same purpose as in New York. However our law is similarly worded to include the vague concept of "bias" as a motivating factor. And Canadians are already well aware of the tension inherent in defining hate crime too broadly. The recent use of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act by various groups attempting to muzzle the popular press is an obvious example.

If hate crime is to retain its significance as a detestable act, its meaning must be restricted to serious and obvious incidences borne of a poisonous hatred of an identifiable group. Aggressively applying it to offences that just happen to afflict a particular demographic will eventually render all hate crime meaningless.


That is what I mean. I sincerely have trouble thinking that an 80 year old dude thinking with his dick and getting ripped off equates with the KKK lighting a cross on my lawn.

WFDS

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