TY - JOUR

T1 - Hate crimes hurt some more than others

T2 - implications for the just sentencing of offenders

AU - Iganski, Paul

AU - Lagou, Spyridoula

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 30 (10), 2015, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2015 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Journal of Interpersonal Violence page: http://jiv.sagepub.com/ on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

PY - 2015/5/6

Y1 - 2015/5/6

N2 - An accumulation of research evidence indicates that hate crimes as a category of offence are more serious than similar but otherwise motivated crimes in respect of the greater post-victimization distress reported by victims. Such evidence has been used by advocates of hate crime laws to justify the imposition of greater penalties in the sentencing of convicted hate crime offenders. However, in focusing on the commonalities of the greater level of post-victimization impacts experienced by hate crime victims as a group, the research evidence to date has obscured the diversity of reactions between victims. Consequently, this article expands the evidence in new directions by illuminating the variation in reported victim impacts. The analysis presented uses data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales on reported racially motivated crime and reveals that not all victims report being emotionally affected by hate crime, not all victims are affected the same way, and some victims of racially motivated crime report less of an emotional impact than some victims of equivalent but otherwise motivated crimes. The research findings are used to reason that in any individual case of hate crime the motivating sentiments of the offender provide an unreliable indicator of the harms inflicted upon the victim. Therefore a blanket uplift in penalty in every case of hate crime which rests upon the offender’s mental state— their prejudice, bigotry, bias, or ‘hate’ — cannot be justified if the justification for sentence uplift is to give offenders their just deserts for the harms they inflict. Instead, the justification must rest upon the culpability of the offender for the harms they may or may not actually inflict. Just as there is variation in victim impacts, there will be variation in offender culpability: discretion and flexibility in the mode of enhanced sentencing is therefore necessary to ensure justice for offenders as well as victims.

AB - An accumulation of research evidence indicates that hate crimes as a category of offence are more serious than similar but otherwise motivated crimes in respect of the greater post-victimization distress reported by victims. Such evidence has been used by advocates of hate crime laws to justify the imposition of greater penalties in the sentencing of convicted hate crime offenders. However, in focusing on the commonalities of the greater level of post-victimization impacts experienced by hate crime victims as a group, the research evidence to date has obscured the diversity of reactions between victims. Consequently, this article expands the evidence in new directions by illuminating the variation in reported victim impacts. The analysis presented uses data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales on reported racially motivated crime and reveals that not all victims report being emotionally affected by hate crime, not all victims are affected the same way, and some victims of racially motivated crime report less of an emotional impact than some victims of equivalent but otherwise motivated crimes. The research findings are used to reason that in any individual case of hate crime the motivating sentiments of the offender provide an unreliable indicator of the harms inflicted upon the victim. Therefore a blanket uplift in penalty in every case of hate crime which rests upon the offender’s mental state— their prejudice, bigotry, bias, or ‘hate’ — cannot be justified if the justification for sentence uplift is to give offenders their just deserts for the harms they inflict. Instead, the justification must rest upon the culpability of the offender for the harms they may or may not actually inflict. Just as there is variation in victim impacts, there will be variation in offender culpability: discretion and flexibility in the mode of enhanced sentencing is therefore necessary to ensure justice for offenders as well as victims.

KW - Hate crimes

KW - ethnicity

KW - Mental Health and violence

KW - PTSD

U2 - 10.1177/0886260514548584

DO - 10.1177/0886260514548584

M3 - Journal article

VL - 30

SP - 1696

EP - 1718

JO - Journal of Interpersonal Violence

JF - Journal of Interpersonal Violence

SN - 1552-6518

IS - 10

ER -