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Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived membership of a certain social group. Examples of such groups can include, and are almost exclusively limited to race, ethnicity, disability, language, nationality, physical appearance, political views, political affiliation, Ageing, religion, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. "A hate crime or bias motivated crime occurs when the perpetrator of the crime intentionally selects the victim because of their membership in a certain group."Streissguth, Tom (2003). Hate Crimes (Library in a Book), p. 3. .
Hate crime should be distinguished from hate violence, or hate incidents, which might not necessarily be criminalised Incidents may involve physical assault, homicide, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse (which includes slurs) or , mate crime, or offensive graffiti or letters (hate mail). Non-criminal actions that are motivated by these reasons are often called "".
For example, the criminal law of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines a hate crime as a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. Hate itself is not a hate crime, but committing a crime motivated by bias against one or more of the social groups listed above, or by bias against their derivatives constitutes a hate crime. A hate crime law is a law intended to deter bias-motivated violence. Hate crime laws are distinct from laws against hate speech: hate crime laws enhance the penalties associated with conduct which is already criminal under other laws, while hate speech laws criminalize a category of speech. Hate speech is a factor for sentencing enhancement in the United States, distinct from laws that criminalize speech.
During the past two centuries, typical examples of hate crimes in the U.S. include the lynching of African Americans, largely in the South, lynchings of Europeans in the East, and lynching of Mexicans and Chinese in the West; in order to intimidate black activists or drive black families out of predominantly white neighborhoods both during and after Reconstruction; assaults on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people; the painting of on Jewish ; and Xenophobia responses to a variety of minorities .
The verb " to Lynching" is attributed to the actions of Charles Lynch, an 18th-century Virginia Quaker. Lynch, other militia officers, and justices of the peace rounded up Tory sympathizers who were given a summary trial at an informal court; sentences which were handed down included whipping, property seizure, coerced pledges of allegiance, and conscription into the military. Originally, the term referred to the extrajudicial organized but unauthorized punishment of criminals. It later evolved to describe executions which were committed outside "ordinary justice". It is highly associated with white suppression of African Americans in the South, and periods of weak or nonexistent police authority, as in certain frontier areas of the Old West.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the violence against people of Chinese origin significantly increased on the background of accusation of spreading the virus. In May 2020, the Polish-based "Never Again" Association published its report titled The Virus of Hate: The Brown Book of Epidemic, that documented numerous acts of racism, xenophobia, and discrimination that occurred in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as cases of spreading hate speech and conspiracy theories about the epidemic by the Alt-Right. In the U.S., this wave of hate brought back old and harmful stereotypes. The idea of the "Yellow Peril," the belief that Asians are a threat to Western society, reappeared in news stories and social media, reinforcing long-standing fears and suspicions. At the same time, the "Model Minority" myth made it harder for people to see the very real struggles Asian Americans face, painting them as silent and successful, and often excluding them from conversations about racial injustice. As a result, Asian Americans across the country experienced a dramatic rise in hate crimes, from verbal abuse and being spit on to physical attacks in public places. Elderly individuals were especially targeted, with several shocking assaults captured on video. Businesses were vandalized, and many people were harassed simply for wearing a mask or speaking their native language. These were not just random incidents, they were symptoms of deep-rooted racism that was reignited during a time of fear, uncertainty, and misinformation.
Hate crime victims can also develop depression and psychological trauma. They suffer from typical symptoms of trauma: lack of concentration, fear, unintentional rethinking of the incident and feeling vulnerable or unsafe. These symptoms may be severe enough to qualify as PTSD. In the United States, the Supreme Court has accepted the claim that hate crimes cause 'distinct emotional harm' to victims. People who have been victims of hate crimes avoid spaces where they feel unsafe which can make communities less functional when ties with police are strained by persistent group fears and feelings of insecurity. In the United States, hate crime has been shown to reduce educational attainment among affected groups—particularly among black, non-Hispanic victims.
A review of European and American research indicates that terrorist bombings cause Islamophobia and hate crimes to flare up but, in calmer times, they subside again, although to a relatively high level. Terrorists' most persuasive message is that of fear; a primary and strong emotion, fear increases risk estimates and has distortive effects on the perception of ordinary Muslims. Widespread Islamophobic prejudice seems to contribute to anti-Muslim hate crimes, but indirectly; terrorist attacks and intensified Islamophobic prejudice serve as a window of opportunity for extremist groups and networks.
In a later article, Levin and fellow sociologist Ashley Reichelmann found that following the September 11 attacks, thrill motivated hate crimes tended to decrease as the overall rate of violent crime decreased while defensive hate crimes increased substantially. Specifically, they found that 60% of all hate motivated assaults in 2001 were perpetrated against those the offenders perceived to be Middle Eastern and were motivated mainly by a desire for revenge. Levin and McDevitt also argued that while thrill crimes made up the majority of hate crimes in the 1990s, after September 11, 2001, hate crimes in the United States shifted from thrill offenses by young groups to more defensive oriented and more often perpetrated by older individuals respond to a precipitating event.
The motivations of hate-crime offenders are complex. Therefore, there is no one theory that can completely account for hate-motived crimes.Walters, 2010 However, Mark Austin Walters previously attempted to synthesize three interdisciplinary theories to account for the behavior of hate-crime offenders:
1. Strain Theory: suggests that hate crimes are motivated by perceived economic and material inequality, which results in differential attitudes towards outsiders who may be viewed as "straining" already scarce resources. An example of this can be seen in the discourse surrounding some people's apprehension towards immigrants, who feel as though immigrants and/or refugees receive extra benefits from government and strain social systems.
2. Doing Difference Theory: suggests that some individuals fear groups other than their own and, as a result of this, seek to suppress different cultures.
3. Self-Control Theory: suggests that a person's upbringing determines their tolerance threshold towards others, here individuals with low self-esteem are often impulsive, have poor employment prospects, and have little academic success.
Walters argues that a synthesis of these theories provides a more well-rounded scope of the motivations behind hate crimes, where he explains that social, cultural, and individual factors interact to elicit the violence behavior of individuals with low self-control.
Additionally, psychological perspectives within the realm of behaviorism have also contributed to theoretical explanations for the motivations of hate crimes particularly as it relates to conditioning and social learning. For instance, the seminal work of John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner illustrated that hate, a form of prejudice, was a conditioned emotional response.Watson & Rayner, 1920 Later on, the work of Arthur Staats and Carolyn Staats illustrated that both hate and fear were learned behavioral responses.Staats & Staats, 1958 In their experiment, Staats and Staats paired positive and negative works with several different nationalities. The pairing of verbal stimuli was a form of conditioning, and it was found to influence attitude formation and attitude change.
These studies are of interest when considering modern forms of prejudice directed towards ethnic, religious, or racial groups. For instance, there was a significant increase in Islamophobia and hate crimes following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Simultaneously, the news media was consistently pairing Islam with terrorism. Thus, the pairing of verbal stimuli in the media contributed to widespread prejudice towards all Arab individuals in a process that is known as semantic generalization, which refers to how a learned behavior can generalize across situations based on meaning or other abstract representations.Bhatia, 2017 These occurrences continue today with the social and political discourse that contribute to the context in which people learn, come to form beliefs, and engage in behavioral actions. Although not all individuals with prejudicial attitudes go on to engage in hate-motived crime, it has been suggested that hate-crime offenders come to learn their prejudices through social interaction, consumption of biased news media, political hate speech, and internal misrepresentations of cultures other than their own.McDevitt et al., 2002
Since 1992, the Danish Civil Security Service (PET) has released statistics on crimes with apparent racist motivation.
Hate crimes are not specifically tracked by German police, but have been studied separately: a recently published EU "Report on Racism" finds that racially motivated attacks are frequent in Germany, identifying 18,142 incidences for 2006, of which 17,597 were motivated by right-wing ideologies, both about a 14% year-by-year increase. Relative to the size of the population, this represents an eightfold higher rate of hate crimes than reported in the US during the same period. Awareness of hate crimes in Germany remains low.
The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989 created the offence of inciting hatred against a group of persons on account of their race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins, membership of the Irish Travellers community (an indigenous minority group), or sexual orientation. Frustration at the low number of prosecutions (18 by 2011) was attributed to a misconception that the law addressed hate crimes more generally as opposed to incitement in particular.;
In 2019, a UN rappourteur told Irish representatives at the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, meeting at UN Geneva, to introduce new hate crime legislation to combat the low prosecution rate for offences under the 1989 act – particularly for online hate speech – and lack of training for the Garda Síochána on racially motivated crimes. The rapporteur's points came during a rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric and racist attacks in Ireland and were based on recommendations submitted by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and numerous other civil society organisations. Reforms are supported by the Irish Network Against Racism.
The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill known as the "Hate Crime Bill", prohibiting hate speech or incitement to hate crimes based on protected characteristics, is in its Third Stage at the Seanad, Ireland's upper house, and the Irish Times reports it is likely to become law in late 2023. It has drawn concern from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and from across the political spectrum (specifically from Michael McDowell, Rónán Mullen, and People Before Profit), as well as internationally, from business magnate Elon Musk and political activist Donald Trump Jr. Paul Murphy of People Before Profit said the bill created a "Thoughtcrime" by its criminalisation of possessing material prepared for circulation where circulation would incite hatred. Pauline O'Reilly, a Green Party senator said that the existing legislation was "not effective" and outdated, adding that the Gardaí saw a rise of 30% in hate crime in Ireland."
Data published by the Gardaí showed a 29% increase in hate crimes and hate-related incidents from 448 in 2021 to 582 in 2022. The Gardaí recognise that "despite improvements, hate crime and hate related incidents are still under-reported".
Article 299 of the Criminal Code defines incitement to national, racist, or religious hatred as a specific offense. This article has been used in political trials of suspected members of the banned organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir." Human Rights in the OSCE Region: Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report 2004 (Events of 2003) , International Helsinki Federation," 23 June 2004. Retrieved on 2007-08-02.
On 14 May 2019, the Spanish Attorney General distributed a circular instructing on the interpretation of hate crime law. This new interpretation includes Nazism as a collective that can be protected under this law.
Although a member of the Council of Europe, Spain is not a party to the Convention on Cybercrime.
Under the Criminal Codex, crimes committed because of hatred are hate crimes and carry increased punishment in many articles of the criminal law. There are also separate articles on punishment for a hate crime.
Article 161: "Violations of equality of citizens depending on their race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, disability and other grounds: Intentional acts aimed at incitement to ethnic, racial or religious hatred and violence, to demean the ethnic honor and dignity, or to repulse citizens' feelings due to their religious beliefs, as well as direct or indirect restriction of rights or the establishment of direct or indirect privileges of citizens on the grounds of race, color, political, religious or other beliefs, sex, disability, ethnic or social origin, property status, place of residence, language or other grounds" (maximum criminal sentence of up to 8 years in prison).
Article 300: "Importation, manufacture or distribution of literature and other media promoting a cult of violence and cruelty, racial, ethnic or religious intolerance and discrimination" (maximum criminal sentence of up to 5 years in prison).
Separately, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines separate offences, with increased sentences, for racially or religiously aggravated assaults, harassment, and a handful of public order offences.
For Northern Ireland, Public Order 1987 (S.I. 1987/463 (N.I. 7)) serves the same purposes. A "racial group" is a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins. A "religious group" is a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.
"Hate crime" legislation is distinct from "hate speech" legislation. See Hate speech laws in the United Kingdom.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) reported in 2013 that there were an average of 278,000 hate crimes a year with 40 percent being reported according to a victims survey; police records only identified around 43,000 hate crimes a year. It was reported that police recorded a 57-percent increase in hate crime complaints in the four days following the UK's European Union membership referendum; however, a press release from the National Police Chief's Council stated that "this should not be read as a national increase in hate crime of 57 percent". Cameron condemns xenophobic and racist abuse after Brexit vote, The Guardian 27 June 2016, accessed 29 June 2016
In 2013, Greater Manchester Police began recording attacks on goths, punks and other alternative culture groups as hate crimes.
On 4 December 2013, Essex Police launched the 'Stop the Hate' initiative as part of a concerted effort to find new ways to tackle hate crime in Essex. The launch was marked by a conference in Chelmsford, hosted by Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh, which brought together 220 delegates from a range of partner organizations involved in the field. The theme of the conference was 'Report it to Sort it' and the emphasis was on encouraging people to tell police if they have been a victim of hate crime, whether it be based on race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability.
Crown Prosecution Service guidance issued on 21 August 2017 stated that online hate crimes should be treated as seriously as offences in person.
Perhaps the most high-profile hate crime in modern Britain occurred in Eltham, London, on 24 April 1993, when 18-year-old black student Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in an attack by a gang of white youths. Two white teenagers were later charged with the murder, and at least three other suspects were mentioned in the national media, but the charges against them were dropped within three months after the Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. However, a change in the law a decade later allowed a suspect to be charged with a crime twice if new evidence emerged after the original charges were dropped or a "not guilty" verdict was delivered in court. Gary Dobson, who had been charged with the murder in the initial 1993 investigation, was found guilty of Stephen Lawrence's murder in January 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment, as was David Norris, who had not been charged in 1993. A third suspect, Luke Knight, had been charged in 1993 but was not charged when the case came to court nearly 20 years later.
In September 2020, the Law Commission proposed that sex or gender be added to the list of protected characteristics.
The United Kingdom is a party to the Convention on Cybercrime, but not the Additional Protocol.
A 2021 investigation by Newsnight and The Law Society Gazette found that alleged hate crimes in which the victim was a police officer were significantly more likely to result in a successful prosecution. The investigation found that in several areas, crimes against police officers and staff constituted up to half of all hate crimes convictions, despite representing a much smaller proportion of reported incidents.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 comes into force on 1 April 2024. Its introduction was criticised by the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents saying it feared Police Scotland would be deluged by cases, diverting officers from tackling violent offenders and that the Act threatened to fuel claims of "institutional bias" against the force.
In 1996, the federal government amended a section of the Criminal Code that pertains to sentencing. Specifically, section 718.2. The section states (with regard to the hate crime):
A vast majority (84 percent) of hate crime perpetrators were "male, with an average age of just under 30. Less than 10 of those accused had criminal records, and less than 5 percent had previous hate crime involvement". "Only 4 percent of hate crimes were linked to an organized or extremist group".
As of 2004, Jewish people were the largest ethnic group targeted by hate crimes, followed by black people, Muslims, South Asians, and homosexuals (Silver et al., 2004). More recently, hate crimes targeting Jews accounted for 67% of all reported hate crimes targeting religions in 2022.
During the Nazi regime in Germany, antisemitism was a cause of hate-related violence in Canada. For example, on 16 August 1933, there was a baseball game in Toronto and one team was made up mostly of Jewish players. At the end of the game, a group of Nazi sympathizers unfolded a Swastika flag and shouted "Heil Hitler." That event erupted into a brawl that pitted Jews and Italians against Anglo Canadians; the brawl went on for hours.
The first time someone was charged for hate speech over the internet occurred on 27 March 1996. "A Winnipeg teenager was arrested by the police for sending an email to a local political activist that contained the message "Death to homosexuals...it's prescribed in the Bible! Better watch out next Gay Pride Week.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada saw a sudden rise in hate crimes based on race, religion, and sexual orientation. Statistics Canada reported there was a 72% increase in hate crimes between 2019 and 2021.
Murders of LGBTQ individuals are not legally classified as hate crimes in Mexico, although Luis Guzman of the Cohesión de Diversidades para la Sustentabilidad (Codise) notes that there is a lot of homophobia in Mexico, particularly in the states of Veracruz, Chihuahua, and Michoacán. Between 2014 and May 2020, there have been 209 such murders registered.
The first state hate-crime statute, California's Section 190.2, was passed in 1978 and provided penalty enhancements in cases when murders were motivated by prejudice against four "protected status" categories: race, religion, color, and national origin. Washington included ancestry in a statute which was passed in 1981. Alaska included creed and sex in 1982, and later disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. In the 1990s some state laws began to include ageing, marital status, membership in the armed forces, and membership in civil rights organizations.Streissguth (2003), pp. 20–21.
Until California state legislation included all crimes as possible hate crimes in 1987, criminal acts which could be considered hate crimes in various states included aggravated assault, assault and battery, vandalism, rape, and intimidation, arson, trespassing, stalking, and various "lesser" acts.Streissguth (2003), p. 21.
Defined in the 1999 National Crime Victim Survey, "A hate crime is a criminal offence. In the United States, federal prosecution is possible for hate crimes committed on the basis of a person's race, religion, or nation origin when engaging in a federally protected activity." In 2009, capping a broad-based public campaign lasting more than a decade, President Barack Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The Act added actual or perceived gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability to the federal definition of a hate crime, and dropped the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity. Led by Shepard's parents and a coalition of civil rights groups, with ADL (the Anti-Defamation League), in a lead role, the campaign to pass the Matthew Shepard Act lasted 13 years, in large part because of opposition to including the term "sexual orientation" as one of the bases for deeming a crime to be a hate crime.
ADL also drafted model hate crimes legislation in the 1980s that serves as the template for the legislation that a majority of states have adopted. As of the fall of 2020, 46 of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. have statutes criminalizing various types of hate crimes. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have statutes creating a Legal liability in addition to the criminal penalty for similar acts. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have statutes requiring the state to collect hate crime statistics. State Hate Crime Laws , Anti-Defamation League, June 2006. Retrieved 4 May 2007. In May 2020, the killing of African-American jogger Ahmaud Arbery reinvigorated efforts to adopt a hate-crimes law in Georgia, which was one of a handful of states without a such legislation. Led in great part by the Hate-Free Georgia Coalition, a group of 35 nonprofit groups organized by the Georgia state ADL, the legislation was adopted in June 2020, after 16 years of debate.
According to the FBI Hate Crime Statistics report for 2006, hate crimes increased nearly 8 percent nationwide, with a total of 7,722 incidents and 9,080 offences reported by participating law enforcement agencies. Of the 5,449 crimes against persons, 46 percent were classified as intimidation, and 32 percent as simple assaults. Acts of vandalism or destruction comprised 81 percent of the 3,593 crimes against property.Statistics, 2006 Hate Crime Statistics, 2006, Federal Bureau of Investigation
However, according to the FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2007, the number of hate crimes decreased to 7,624 incidents reported by participating law enforcement agencies.Statistics, 2007 Hate Crime Statistics, 2007, Federal Bureau of Investigation These incidents included nine murders and two rapes (out of the almost 17,000 murders and 90,000 forcible rapes committed in the U.S. in 2007).Statistics, 2007 FBI Crime in the United States 2007, Federal Bureau of Investigation
In June 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder said recent killings showed the need for a tougher U.S. hate-crimes law to stop "violence masquerading as political activism."
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund published a report in 2009 revealing that 33 percent of hate-crime offenders were under the age of 18, while 29 percent were between the ages of 18 and 24.
The 2011 hate-crime statistics show 46.9 percent were motivated by race, and 20.8 percent by sexual orientation.
In 2015, the Hate Crimes Statistics report identified 5,818 single-bias incidents involving 6,837 offenses, 7,121 victims, and 5,475 known offenders
In 2017, the FBI released new data showing a 17 percent increase in hate crimes between 2016 and 2017.
In 2018, the Hate Crime Statistics report showed 59.5 percent were motivated by race bias and 16.9 percent by sexual orientation.
Prosecutions of hate crimes have been difficult in the United States. Recently, state governments have attempted to re-investigate and re-try past hate crimes. One notable example was Mississippi's decision to retry Byron De La Beckwith in 1990 for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers, a prominent figure in the NAACP and a leader of the civil rights movement. This was the first time in U.S. history that an unresolved civil rights case was re-opened. De La Beckwith, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was tried for the murder on two previous occasions, resulting in Hung jury. A mixed-race jury found Beckwith guilty of murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
According to a November 2016 report issued by the FBI, hate crimes are on the rise in the United States. The number of hate crimes increased from 5,850 in 2015, to 6,121 hate crime incidents in 2016, an increase of 4.6 percent.
The Khalid Jabara-Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act (NO HATE), which was first introduced in 2017, was reintroduced in June 2019 to improve hate crime reporting and expand support for victims as a response to anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim and antisemitic attacks. The bill would fund state hate-crime hotlines, and support expansion of reporting and training programs in law enforcement agencies.
According to a 2021 study, in the years between 1992 and 2014, white people were the offenders in 74.5 percent of anti-Asian hate crimes, 99 percent of anti-black hate crimes, and 81.1 percent of anti-Hispanic hate crimes.
Analysts have compared groups in terms of the per capita rate of hate crimes committed against them to allow for differing populations. Overall, the total number of hate crimes committed since the first hate crime bill was passed in 1997 is 86,582.
| + Hate crimes in the US (2008–2012) by victim population group | |||||
| Jewish American | 5,248,674 | 4,457 | 84.9 | 411 | 7.8 |
| LGBT | 11,343,000 Adult LGBT Population in the United States Retrieved March 2019 | 7,231 | 66.9 | 3,849 | 35.6 |
| Muslim Americans | 1,852,473 In US, 77% Identify as Christian. Retrieved 17 May 2014 | 761 | 41.1 | 258 | 13.9 |
| Black American | 38,929,319 U.S. Census website. Retrieved 17 May 2014 | 13,411 | 34.4 | 4,356 | 11.2 |
| Aboriginal | 2,932,248 | 364 | 12.4 | 161 | 5.5 |
| Hispanic | 50,477,594 | 3,064 | 6.1 | 1,482 | 2.9 |
| Asian American and Pacific Islander | 15,214,265 | 798 | 5.2 | 276 | 1.8 |
| White American | 223,553,265 | 3,459 | 1.5 | 1,614 | 0.7 |
| Catholic | 67,924,018 "Nones" on the Rise, Retrieved 17 May 2014 | 338 | 0.5 | 32 | 0.0 |
| Atheist and agnostic | 17,598,496 | 47 | 0.3 | 5 | 0.0 |
| Protestant | 148,197,858 | 229 | 0.2 | 17 | 0.0 |
Among the groups which are mentioned in the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, the largest number of hate crimes are committed against African Americans. During the Civil Rights Movement, some of the most notorious hate crimes included the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the 1964 murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, and the burning of crosses, churches, Judaism , and other places of worship of minority religions. Such acts began to take place more frequently after the racial integration of many schools and public facilities.
Since then, hate crimes targeting Jews have risen sharply, as in 2023, Antisemitic hate crimes increased by 63% to an all-time high of 1,832 incidents in the United States. Furthermore, Jews comprise roughly 2% of the American population, but represent 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in the country.
High-profile murders targeting victims based on their sexual orientation have prompted the passage of hate crimes legislation, notably the cases of Sean W. Kennedy and Matthew Shepard. Kennedy's murder was mentioned by Senator Gordon Smith in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate while he advocated such legislation. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law in 2009. It included sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disably status, and military personnel and their family members. This is the first all-inclusive bill ever passed in the United States, taking 45 years to complete.
Gender-based crimes may also be considered hate crimes. This view would designate rape and domestic violence, as well as non-interpersonal violence against women such as the École Polytechnique massacre in Quebec, as hate crimes.
Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States experienced a spike in overall hate crimes against Muslim individuals. In the year before, only 28 events had been recorded of hate crimes against Muslims; in 2001, this number jumped to 481. While the number decreased in the following years, the number of Muslim hate crimes remains higher than pre-2001. After the beginning of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, hate crimes began to increase once again due to the United States allyship with Israel. Palestinian-Americans became a target for hate crimes and were blamed for the conflict leading to violence, including in the case of the Murder of Wadea al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy killed by a white man who was motivated by anti-Muslim extremism.
In May 2018, ProPublica reviewed police reports for 58 cases of purported anti-heterosexual hate crimes. ProPublica found that about half of the cases were anti-LGBT hate crimes that had been miscategorized, and that the rest were motivated by hate towards Jews, blacks or women or that there was no element of a hate crime at all. ProPublica did not find any cases of hate crimes spurred by anti-heterosexual bias.
The crimes of racism and racial injury, although similar, are enforced slightly differently. Article 140, 3rd paragraph, of the Penal Code establishes a harsher penalty, from a minimum of one year to a maximum of three years, for injuries motivated by "elements referring to race, color, ethnicity, religion, origin, or the condition of being an aged or disability". On the other side, Law 7716/1989 covers "crimes resulting from discrimination or prejudice on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, religion, or national origin".
In addition, the Brazilian Constitution defines as a "fundamental goal of the Republic" (Article 3rd, clause IV) "to promote the well-being of all, with no prejudice as to nationality, race, sex, color, age, and any other forms of discrimination".
In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that penalty-enhancement hate crime statutes do not conflict with free speech rights, because they do not punish an individual for exercising freedom of expression; rather, they allow courts to consider motive when sentencing a criminal for conduct which is not protected by the First Amendment. In the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the court defined "fighting words" as "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
David Brax argues that critics of hate-crime laws are wrong in claiming that hate crimes punish thoughts or motives; he asserts they do not do this, but instead punish people for choosing these reasons to commit a criminal act.Brax, David. "Motives, reasons, and responsibility in hate/bias crime legislation." Criminal Justice Ethics 35, no. 3 (2016): 230-248. Similarly, Andrew Seidel writes, "Hate crime or bias intimidation crimes are not thoughtcrimes. Most crimes require two things: an act and an intent... If you simply hate someone based on race, sexuality, or creed, that thought is not punishable. Only the thought combined with an illegal action is criminal." (2019). 9781454943914, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.. ISBN 9781454943914
In their book Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics, James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter criticize hate crime legislation for exacerbating conflicts between groups. They assert that by defining crimes as being committed by one group against another, rather than as being committed by individuals against their society, the labeling of crimes as "hate crimes" causes groups to feel persecuted by one another, and that this impression of persecution can incite a backlash and thus lead to an actual increase in crime.Jacobs, James B. & Kimberly Potter. (1998). Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, Jacobs and Potter also argued that hate crime legislation can end up only covering the victimization of some groups rather than all, which is a form of discrimination itself and that attempts to remedy this by making all identifiable groups covered by hate crime protection thus make hate crimes co-terminus with generic criminal law. The authors also suggest that arguments which attempt to portray hate crimes as worse than normal crimes because they spread fear in a community are unsatisfactory, as normal criminal acts can also spread fear yet only hate crimes are singled out. Indeed, it has been argued that victims have varied reactions to hate crimes, so it is not necessarily true that hate crimes are regarded as more harmful than other crimes.Iganski, Paul, and Spiridoula Lagou. "Hate crimes hurt some more than others: Implications for the just sentencing of offenders." Journal of interpersonal violence 30.10 (2015): 1696-1718. Dan Kahan argues that the "greater harm" argument is conceptually flawed, as it is only because people value their group identities that attacks motivated by an animus against those identities are seen as worse, thus making it the victim and society's reaction to the crime rather than the crime itself.Kahan, Dan M. "Two liberal fallacies in the hate crimes debate." Law and Philosophy (2001): 175-193, pp.183-185
Heidi Hurd argues that hate crime represents an effort by the state to encourage a certain moral character in its citizen and thus represents the view that the instillation of virtue and the elimination of vice are legitimate state goals, which she argues is a contradiction of the principles of liberalism. Hurd also argues that increasing punishment for an offence because the perpetrator was motivated by hate compared to some other motivation means that the justice systems is treating the same crime differently, even though treating like cases alike is a cornerstone of criminal justice.Hurd, Heidi. "Why Liberals Should Hate'Hate Crime Legislation'." (2001).
Some have argued hate crime laws bring the law into disrepute and further divide society, as groups apply to have their critics silenced. American forensic psychologist Karen Franklin said that the term hate crime is somewhat misleading since it assumes there is a hateful motivation which is not present in many occasions;Frontline (PBS), Interviews, Accessed 26 July 2014, "...forensic psychologist, Karen Franklin's dual interests in psychology and the law brought her to question the roots of anti-gay hate crimes... badly needed empirical data on the nature and extent of negative reactions to gays..." in her view, laws to punish people who commit hate crimes may not be the best remedy for preventing them because the threat of future punishment does not usually deter such criminal acts. Some on the political left have been critical of hate crime laws for expanding the criminal justice system and dealing with violence against minority groups through punitive measures. Briana Alongi argues that hate crime legislation is inconsistent, redundant and arbitrarily applied, while also being partially motivated by political opportunism and media bias rather than purely by legal principle.Alongi, Briana. The Negative Ramifications of Hate Crime Legislation: It's Time to Reevaluate Whether Hate Crime Laws Are Beneficial to Society. Pace L. Rev. 37 (2016): 326.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Hate Crime Statistics, annual FBI/U.S. Department of Justice report on the prevalence of hate crimes in the United States. Required by the Hate Crime Statistics Act.
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