Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lordcooper]

Greater Manchester Police will be recording attacks on members of subcultures as hatecrimes.

This doesn't change the legal definition of hatecrime in the UK ("offences against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity") or how the police treat such crimes, just that the statistics will be recorded.

Hatecrime legislation is silly.  A stabbing is a stabbing, regardless of who stabbed who.

[palsch]

Hatecrime legislation is silly.  A stabbing is a stabbing, regardless of who stabbed who.

We recognised different types of stabbings independently of hatecrime legislation though. We prosecute people differently based on their intent and motivations simply as a part of general law. This makes sense. Different motivations require different remedies. If someone commits a crime of passion the right punishment will be different to someone who carries out a premeditated attack.

Recognising that certain types of attack require certain types of cultural recognition and attention is just an extra layer.

Note that this is focusing on the UK; in the US federal hate crime laws have the added bonus of bringing attention to crimes that state or local police might not be interested in prosecuting.

[Descan]

Well, that's good. I don't know if I'm a fan of hate-crime prosecution (A crime is a crime, hate-crimes carrying a higher punishment just feels like thought-police to me. Better would be to have mandatory tolerance stuffs as a requirement for their parole, or something. Not a longer sentence. I'm tired so if this doesn't make sense or is hypocritical, fuck you <3) but if they have to have it, any crime that could be motivated by hate should be recorded, and sub-cultures are quite open to that. "You're different! *punch*", yanno?

[Leafsnail]

Descan: You're thinking about it through a lense of "the law is only there to provide punishment".  If you think about rehabilitation, deterrence or protection of the public it quickly becomes clear why the intent behind a crime matters.

[GlyphGryph]

Huh, I guess I wrote a post and then... forgot to post it.

A Hate Crime doesn't actually have anything to do with "hate". It's really a pretty big misnomer. It does have to do with intent, though.

If you are attempting to injure a group through assault on it's members, that's the sort of things hate crimes are trying to respond to. Because in a hate crime, say, a murder, the intended (and likely actual) damage is actually significantly more than the death of the victim. It's intended not just as an attack not just against them, but against everyone who shares the association or identity being targeted.

To that end, it makes more sense that it would be considered an additional thing on top of plain old murder.

[Owlbread]

Descan: You're thinking about it through a lense of "the law is only there to provide punishment".  If you think about rehabilitation, deterrence or protection of the public it quickly becomes clear why the intent behind a crime matters.

The police in the UK exist to deal with a crime after it happens. Accordingly, laws treat the "symptoms" of a problem, not the source of the problem itself. A bit like doctors and vets and so forth.

[Descan]

Descan: You're thinking about it through a lense of "the law is only there to provide punishment".  If you think about rehabilitation, deterrence or protection of the public it quickly becomes clear why the intent behind a crime matters.

If you'll notice what I actually wrote, I wrote in "mandatory tolerance courses necessary for parole" I.E. rehabilitation, of a sort. At least the only sort that can be relatively easily accomplished.

I just don't agree with longer sentences for hate-crime.

I'm all for rehabilitation, I'd much prefer the Norway model were deployed everywhere.

[Leafsnail]

But there's the fact that a person who has committed a hate crime is a huge danger to the public unless they can be rehabilitated.  If they killed one guy for being black there's no reason to think they won't kill another guy for being black when they are released (compare to the majority of murder cases where someone has killed someone close to them for personal reasons - as bad as this is, statistically they're very unlikely to kill again).  Thus as they're a greater danger and would need more rehabilitation it makes sense to give them a longer sentence.

The police in the UK exist to deal with a crime after it happens. Accordingly, laws treat the "symptoms" of a problem, not the source of the problem itself. A bit like doctors and vets and so forth.

Huh?

[Descan]

Maybe I'm misstating. Or maybe I don't understand parole.

What I'm TRYING to say is "needs to demonstrate they are, if not enthusiastic supporters, at least tolerant of the subject of their hate-crime, and indeed any other minority or sub-group to be released".

While the end result might be that they don't get released until after their sentence is supposed to end (is that possible?), I don't think just saying "A murder is 15 years, a hate-crime murder is 30, obviously the extra 15 years will make the offender feel remorse that he otherwise wouldn't" is sound logic.

[Leafsnail]

That's pretty much what happens.

[palsch]

The way it works in practice is that it's considered during sentencing. A crime being motivated by hatred towards a group is considered an aggravation along the lines of using a weapon in an assault. In the case of murder, hate crime type murders are considered on the same level as murders with using guns or for personal gain. This changes the starting point from which the judge will consider the sentence. They can then consider other aggravating and mitigating factors and alter the sentence as they see fit.

In an ideal world where you could trust the entire justice system to view crimes against minority groups as serious you wouldn't need this at all. In a world where judges may not view such motivations as aggravations at all (or, in not so distant history, consider them mitigations) it's nice to have pushes in the right direction.

I strongly agree that sentences should be based on rehabilitation over other considerations, but I also feel that recognising hate crimes on a societal and even legal level is a worthwhile step. It's why I don't mind that this recent step by the GMP doesn't change any laws or sentencing, but just recognises crimes against subcultural groups as hate crimes.

[Descan]

I guess I was swinging at phantoms, then.

Point me in the right direction, and I'll keep swinging!

[Nadaka]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/macabre-manslaughter-case-stokes-debate-welfare-reform-170836906.html#G0N4zUs

A UK man kills 6 kids in a fire... So the conservatives in his country decide its time to shut down the welfare system?

[lordcooper]

A man had porridge for breakfast... So the conservatives decide its time to shut down the welfare system.
It's a bit rainy today... So the conservatives decide its time to shut down the welfare system.
Someone fell over... So the conservatives decide its time to shut down the welfare system.
Our atmosphere contains oxygen... So the conservatives decide its time to shut down the welfare system.

[MonkeyHead]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/macabre-manslaughter-case-stokes-debate-welfare-reform-170836906.html#G0N4zUs

A UK man kills 6 kids in a fire... So the conservatives in his country decide its time to shut down the welfare system?

The more conservative aspects of our media are trying to label the fact he was on multiple benefits and in social housing as a cause of the horrific events, when in realitiy they are more a symptom of the sort of person the man in question was.