Hate Crime Laws Debate
Penalty-enhancement hate crime laws are traditionally justified on the grounds that, in Chief Justice Rehnquist's words, "this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm.... bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest."
Some people object to penalty-enhancement and federal prosecution laws because they believe they offer preferred protection to certain individuals over others. There is less opposition to data collection statutes.
Read more about this topic: Hate Crime Laws In The United States
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—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
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—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)