Why Liberals Should Hate the Hate Crime Legislation Research Paper

Why Liberals Should Hate the Hate Crime Legislation - Research Paper Example It is essential to put into perspective the view that increased penalties for hate crimes are in fact justifiable, with a view to assessing its plausibility. The major reason for having increased penalties for harsh crimes is because, as opposed to regular crimes, hate crimes normally hurt a whole social group (Hurd 215). Whenever an individual commits a hate crime, it is evident that they are not doing it against the victim only, but as a matter of expressing their dislike and contempt for the whole social group. This being the case, therefore, a hate crime is not a crime against an individual, but a crime against a social group, of which, if the perpetrator of the crime could have the ability, he/she would harm the whole group. It, therefore, follows that even when a perpetrator of hate crime would seek to be charged equally with a regular crime perpetrator, doing so would be an injustice to the regular perpetrator of crime since one crime is definitely weightier than the other, ow ing to the number of individuals it hurts. Thus, there is a general agreement that hate crimes are crimes of a higher magnitude compared to regular crimes, in regard to the number of individuals hurt by such crimes, and thus should carry a higher penalty. Even when Hurd disagrees with the higher penalties attached to hate crime compared to regular crimes, there is a general agreement that owing to the number of people hurt by hate crimes, such criminals deserve a higher penalty. The second argument in support for higher penalties for hate crimes is the fact that hate crimes represent significantly greater culpability on the part of the perpetrator (Hurd 216). This is because the committal of a hate crime is a display of a long pre-meditated course of action, as opposed to the inadvertent cause of crimes. This places the perpetrator of such crimes in a more culpable position since those who plan to hurt others are more culpable than those who commit incidental crimes, without any pre -meditation (Hurd 219).