Hate, Crime, and the Law
Hate, Crime, and the Law: A Social Constructionist Perspective
INTRODUCTION
In response to a growing concern about racially or ethnically motivated violence, a
majority of states government have enacted substantive hate crime laws or sentence
enhancements against such offenses. Additionally, the federal government has
responded with the Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990, 1994) and the Hate Crimes Penalty
Enhancement Act (1994). The Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990) instructed the U.S.
Attorney General (using the FBI) to “acquire data …about crime that manifest evidence
of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including, where
appropriate, the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter; forcible rape;
aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation; arson; and destruction, damage and
vandalism of property” (Harlow, 2005:2).
Currently, 49 states and the federal government report hate crime events under
the Uniform Crime Report Program/National Incident Based Reporting System
(UCR/NIBRS) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The data collection
definition does not reflect the existence of uniform hate crime statutes around the
country. Rather, each state has distinct statutes, primarily written with the intent to offer
a sentence enhancement when the commission of a common law offense (which may
include offenses from vandalism to manslaughter) is motivated by hatred (or bias).
These statutes also vary on the type of biases listed as prosecutable motivations, some
include race, ethnicity, age, gender and national origin while others fail to include
religion, sexual orientation and disability status.
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In 1994, the status of disability was added to the list of prejudiced based actions.
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Convention