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ABSTRACTMinimal studies have investigated individuals’ evaluations of antigay hate crimes and hate crime legislation simultaneously, with most research focusing on one or the other. In a sample of 246 heterosexual undergraduates, the present study found that evaluations of antigay hate crimes and hate crime legislation were unrelated. Higher social dominance orientation (SDO) and crime control orientation scores were associated with more positive evaluations of antigay hate crimes. Positive evaluations of hate crime legislation were associated with more positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. We also found that the relationship between SDO and evaluations were mediated by crime control beliefs (for hate crimes evaluations) and antigay attitudes (for hate crime legislation evaluations). The present findings have possible implications for the manner in which organizations advocate for the extension of hate crime legislation to include sexual orientation.

Analysis of US hate crime legislation reveals a significant overall trend involving: (1) the inclusion of a notion of hate motivation on the part of the offender; (2) the provision for enhanced penalties; and (3) the identification of particular victimized groups who are listed in state and federal hate crime statutes. Whether or not a person is recognized as a hate crime victim in US statutes has been shown to be heavily influenced by the strength of social movements based on politicized identities. It is argued that this alignment problematizes the position of victims who are the targets of hate crimes yet who fail to organize on the basis of identity politics, lack political clout, have insufficient moral status, or who see hate crime legislation as an ineffective way of dealing with their particular concerns. This paper examines the barriers to achieving hate crime victim status for persons who are targeted because of their occupations or sexual orientation. The specific examples I will use are doctors and other workers in abortion clinics, sex workers and paedophiles. These widely disparate groups have been selected as examples to highlight some of the moral status, politicized identity and social movement and lobbying strength issues that are currently involved in being recognized as a victim of hate in the US. It is argued that Australia should not proceed down the track of introducing hate crime legislation. Hate crime legislation is the source of serious social disquiet and acrimony in the US. There are inequities built into the alignment between proving hate intent and the enhanced penalty approach that involve giving higher symbolic status to some bodies and not others. As the experience in the US shows, this has a dangerous potential to undermine social cohesion and community faith in equality before the law as well as creating a breeding ground of resentment.

Hate crime is a problem in many countries around the world. Scholars define hate crimes as unlawful conduct directed at different target groups, which can include violent acts, property damage, harassment, and trespassing (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Hate crime perpetrators target their victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or disability, but also a variety of other characteristics. Several social movements (e.g., the civil rights movement, women’s movement, and LGBT movement) laid the foundation for anti-violence movements and placed the hate crime discourse on the political and legislative agenda. One way to better understand hate crime is to explore how governments in different parts of the world address the issue of crimes motivated by hate or prejudice. Targeted laws and policies transformed hate violence from ordinary to extraordinary crime (see Hate crime policy in western Europe: Responding to racist violence in Britain, Germany, and France. American Behavioral Scientist 51.2 [2007]: 149–165). Different countries implemented hate crime legislation in order to condemn crime committed due to prejudice or bias against an individual or group of people, introducing such legislation during different periods in time. The United States emerged as the leader of hate crime policy approaches, implementing legal responses to prejudice and bias in the early 20th century. The United States was also the first country to circulate the term “hate crime” during the 1980s (see Hate crime: An emergent research agenda. Annual Review of Sociology 27.1 [2001]: 479–504). Europe and the Asia-Pacific region followed suit in implementing their own responses to hate crime. The diversity of hate crime legislation in different countries makes it difficult to combine the legislative contexts under a common framework. A controversial debate exists around the need for a separate set of hate crime legislation. Scholars dispute the seriousness of the hate crime offense, the possibilities of proving motivational aspects of the hate crime, criminalizing hate, and introducing more severe punishments. They also debate the utilization of the civil versus the criminal code, the inclusion of different protected categories under hate crime legislation, the symbolic character of hate crime, and the social and political impact of hate crime legislation. This bibliography reviews key resources on hate crime legislation, including its historical context, its globalization, and the socio-criminological debate around hate crime legislation.

Hate crime legislation has sparked substantial political controversy and scholarly discussion. Existing justifications for hate crime legislation proceed on the premise that the rationale supporting such legislation must be found either in the greater gravity of the wrongdoing involved or in the perpetrator's greater degree of culpability. This premise stems from a fundamental theory that dominates criminal law scholarship: the wrongfulness-culpability hypothesis. The wrongfulness-culpability hypothesis posits that the only two grounds that may justify disparate treatment of offenses are the greater wrongfulness of the act or the greater culpability of the perpetrator. Yet, all attempts to demonstrate that hate crimes are more wrongful or morally reprehensible than other crimes have failed to carry the day. This Article challenges the dominance of the wrongfulness-culpability hypothesis and proffers an alternative that supports bias crime legislation: the protection paradigm. The protection conceptualizes protection against crime as a good produced by criminal law and thus requires that it be distributed in an equal manner. Specifically, it imparts a duty on the state to equalize individuals' vulnerability to crime. An individual's vulnerability to crime can be defined as her expected harm from crime--that is, the probability of harm multiplied by its magnitude. A state may address the problem of vulnerable victims in one of two ways. First, it may impose harsher sanctions on those who commit crimes against vulnerable victims. Second, it may devote more resources to the identification and prosecution of individuals who attack such victims. When the latter tactic is unfeasible for some reason, equalizing protection against crime through the imposition of harsher sanctions may be the only way by which the state can provide vulnerable victims with greater protection and thus equalize their vulnerability to that of other potential victims. The distribution of protection does not require absolute equality in expected costs of crime to the victim. Vulnerability to crime is a function of myriad factors such as wealth, age, and attitude towards risk, life experience, and physical and intellectual prowess. Moreover, disparities in vulnerability to crime often depend on the precautions taken by the victim herself. The state cannot be reasonably expected to annul all disparities in the vulnerability of different potential victims of crime. This Article argues, however, that at a minimum the state ought to annul disparities that stem from certain personal characteristics of victims, such as race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. This Article also shows that the explanatory power of the fair protection paradigm ranges far beyond the context of hate crimes. The protection can explain, for instance, why crimes directed against particularly vulnerable victims, such as the elderly and the disabled, are often punished more severely than crimes directed against less vulnerable ones. Properly understood, therefore, hate crime legislation is part of a larger scheme of providing protection against crime. Recognizing the right of victims to equal protection from crime makes it clear that hate crime legislation is consonant with the goals of criminal law. Hate crime legislation is merely one essential step towards a more egalitarian provision of protection against crime--a step which is congruous with the broader goals of the criminal law system.

Supporters of hate crime legislation suggest that the primary reason for the codification of hate crime laws is “to send a strong message of tolerance and equality, signaling to all members of society that hatred and prejudice on the basis of identity will be punished with extra severity.” However, hate crime laws may actually be accomplishing the opposite effect of tolerance and equality because they encourage U.S. citizens to view themselves, not as members of our society, but as members of a protected group. The enactment of hate crime legislation at the federal and state levels has led to unintended consequences and unfair practices. Today, the controversy regarding the effectiveness of hate crime laws is debated, and people question whether this type of legislation is beneficial to society. This article will candidly reevaluate hate crime legislation. Part II will provide the definition of the term “hate crime” and the theoretical justification for enhanced sentencing involving discrimination-based conduct. Focus will be placed on data that disproves the theory that hate crime laws reduce or deter future hate crimes. It will also explain the underlying reasons for the enactment of hate crime laws, such as the media’s role and political influences, and it will present several of the misconceptions associated with hate crime legislation. Part III will present the unintended consequences associated with the enactment of hate crime statutes, including constitutional violations. It will also explain why hate crimes are rarely prosecuted, and will focus on the inconsistency, redundancy, and arbitrary usage/application of hate crime legislation. Part III will also present an individual’s response to the negative, unintended effects of hate crime legislation. Part IV will determine that hate crime legislation is not cost-effective. Part V sets forth a recommendation on improving community efforts to educate or reeducate citizens on respecting diversity. Finally, the article analyzes hate crime laws from supporting and opposing viewpoints and concludes that there is no need to separate hate crimes from other types of crimes as a means to promote a more tolerant, equal, and stable society.

PRONOUN ENVY: LITERARY USES OF LINGUISTIC GENDER. Anna Livia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 237 pp. Reviewed by Julia Penelope. HATE CRIMES: CRIMINAL LAW AND IDENTITY POLITICS. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Reissued in paperback 2001. x + 212 pp. Reviewed by Ralph Wedgwood.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Isn’t Every Crime a Hate Crime? The Case for Hate Crime Laws

There is an ongoing debate amongst hate crime scholars about the categories of victims that should be included within hate crime legislation. Some commentators argue that affording protection to groups based on predefined characteristics results in many victims being excluded from the legislation. They would prefer a more inclusive approach that would offer protection to a potentially limitless number of groups. This paper considers the question from a doctrinal perspective, and argues that a principled way of deciding the characteristics of hate crime is required. It will conclude that the core concern of hate crime legislation is with the furthering of the broader equality agenda and, as such, the victims of hate crime should form an exclusive group based on those characteristics protected under equality legislation. This approach can help provide a theoretical framework for hate crime legislation that can be more easily accommodated within criminal law principles.

This article explores some of the policy issues raised by current proposals to amend federal law to create a broad new federal hate crime. This proposal has passed the Senate twice in recent years, and appears to have substantial support in the House as well. This article lays to one side several serious issues dealt with by other scholars (the constitutional basis for federal jurisdiction and the wisdom of enacting separate penalties for bias-motivated crimes), in order to focus on another feature of the current proposal. Instead of creating a new federal offense that federal officials intend to prosecute aggressively, the proposal would create a new federal offense primarily as a means of sending a symbolic message and providing a legal basis for a partnership in which the federal government provides behind the scenes assistance to state and local efforts. Both the emphasis on symbolism and the effort to create a continuing federal-state partnership create issues that have been largely ignored in the debate over federal hate crimes legislation. This article explores the political science literature on symbolic politics and interest group theory, concluding that they provide one possible explanation for hate crime legislation that evokes intense emotions and provides symbolic reassurance to key interest groups, though it would have little impact on law enforcement. Emphasis on the expressive function of federal criminal law has the potential to alter public perceptions, though it is not clear how that process will play out. The techniques for controlling the enforcement of a new crime are better understood than those for controlling the social meaning of such a law. It may create and strengthen valuable norms and bring about desirable shifts in social capital, but it might also undermine the moral force of the criminal law. The isolation of the symbolism or expressive function also changes the dynamic of the federal legislative process, and the related public debates. The other side of the proposal is the attempt to create a permanent partnership in which federal, state, and local officials work together to investigate and prosecute hate crimes in a task force model. The task force brings to bear resources in an efficient manner, but it strains the constitutional image of separate sovereigns each enforcing their own laws and takes a step towards the integration of the current autonomous police and prosecutorial agencies in the fragmented criminal justice systems within each state. Finally, the deliberate strategy of bringing rare federal prosecutions selected from among thousands of cases allows prosecutors to forum shop and negate state laws that embody state policies, exposing a few defendants to different procedural and substantive laws, and different sentences, than all others who have committed the same conduct.

IN THE ARMS OF AFRICA: THE LIFE OF COLIN M. TURNBULL. Roy Richard Grinker. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000, xiv + 354pp., $27.95. Reviewed by R. A. Horne. HATE CRIMES: CRIMINAL LAW AND IDENTITY POLITICS. James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Reissued in paperback 2001. x + 212 pp. Reviewed by Ralph Wedgwood. CREATIVITY: WHERE THE DIVINE AND HUMAN MEET. Fr. Matthew Fox. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, pb, 2002, $21.95. Reviewed by R. A. Horne.

In “Is Penalty Enhancement a Sound Idea?” Claudia Card calls into question hate crime legislation, querying whether hatred makes a crime worse, whether hatred of the sort pertinent to hate crimes is worse than a more personal hatred, and whether the message sent by hate crime legislation is the intended message. This essay questions her assumption that penalty enhancement for hate crimes is warranted only if the crimes are worse than otherwise similar crimes that do not count as hate crimes. Instead, it may be the case that it is the proper business of the state to take a particular interest in such crimes, in part because they enact not just any hatred but civic hatred. And if hate crimes are understood as enacting civic hatred, hate crime legislation can indeed serve to counter a message that very much needs to be countered.

Recent state and federal legislation such as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) addresses hate crime prevention and punishment. Two pivotal questions that arise in the development of such legislation are (a) should hate crime perpetrators be subject to penalty enhancements? and (b) should protections be extended to sexual and transgender minority individuals? This article presents two studies addressing these questions employing a two-step vignette methodology. Jury-eligible community members provided sentencing and blame attribution ratings for one of three hate crime scenarios (i.e., anti-African American, antigay, or antitransgender), as well as penalty enhancement agreement (i.e., yes/no) and measures of need for affect (Study 1) and need for cognition (Study 2). Patterns of findings across studies suggest that participants comply with hate crime legislation instructions in general, but sentencing decisions are consistently moderated by whether a participant agrees with the penalty enhancement aspect of hate crime legislation. Moreover, need for affect and need for cognition differentially impact perceptions of hate crimes; need for affect demonstrated predictive associations with victim blame, whereas need for cognition moderated relations with perpetrator sentence and blame judgments. Results are discussed with emphasis on the state of federal hate crime legislation, antigay and antitransgender prejudice, and future directions in research and policy.

The history of science came early to Oxford. Its first champion was Robert T. Gunther, the son of a keeper of zoology at the British Museum and a graduate of Magdalen College who took a first there in the School of Natural Science in 1892, specializing in zoology ([figure 1][1]). As tutor in natural

Hate crimes (or bias crimes) are crimes motivated by an offenders’ personal bias against a particular social group. Modern hate crimes legislation developed out of civil rights protections based on race, religion, and national origin; however, the acts that constitute a hate crime have expanded over time, as have the groups protected by hate crimes legislation. Anti-LGBT hate crimes, in which victims are targeted based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT people are highly overrepresented as victims of hate crimes given the number of LGBT people in the population, and this is especially true of hate crimes against transgender women. Despite the frequency of these crimes, the legal framework for addressing them varies widely across the United States. Many states do not have specific legislation that addresses anti-LGBT hate crimes, while others have legislation that mandates data collection on those crimes but does not enhance civil or criminal penalties for them, and some offer enhanced civil and/or criminal penalties. Even in states that do have legislation to address these types of hate crimes, some states only address hate crimes based on sexual orientation but not those based on gender identity. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act gives the federal government the authority to prosecute those crimes regardless of jurisdiction; however, this power has been used in a limited capacity. Hate crimes are distinct from other crimes that are not motivated by bias. For example, thrill seeking, retaliation, or the desire to harm or punish members of a particular social group often motivates perpetrators of hate crimes; these motivations often result in hate crimes being more violent than other similar crimes. The difference in the motivation of offenders also has significant consequences for victims, both physically and mentally. Victims of hate crimes are more likely to require medical attention than victims of non-bias crimes. Likewise, victims of hate crimes, and especially anti-LGBT hate crimes, often experience negative psychological outcomes, such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety as a result of being victimized for being a member of an already marginalized social group.

In this article I argue that the objections against hate crimes defined as separate offenses and in terms of group animus are misguided and are based upon a mistaken view of human action that does not see motives as constituent parts of complex actions. If we are going to have hate crimes legislation, there are no good formal reasons keeping us from having distinct offenses for hate crimes or from having ones defined in terms of group animus. My goal is to clear up a number of action-theoretical confusions that have led some theorists and jurists to raise objections that draw attention away from the real crux of the debate over hate crime legislation. Initially, I defend several considerations that weigh against an understanding of hate crimes legislation as being concerned exclusively or even primarily with character, belief, or motive. These considerations in turn help undercut the related concern that hate crime legislation violates free speech protections.