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
Famous quotes containing the words hate, crime, laws and/or debate:
“No one to hate except the slim fish of memory
that slides in and out of my brain.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The members of a body-politic call it “the state” when it is passive, “the sovereign” when it is active, and a “power” when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title “people,” and they refer to one another individually as “citizens” when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as “subjects” when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)