Criminalizing Hate: Law as Social Justice Liberalism
Location
Bigfoot Room 124
Start Date
21-4-2023 10:30 AM
End Date
21-4-2023 11:45 AM
Publication Date
2023
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Law | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Description
Much has been written about the purpose and justification of hate crime laws. Though not unequivocally settled, it is often claimed that hate crimes are pre-existing offences that “hurt more”, and under conventional theories of liberal criminal law, are therefore deserving of an enhanced punishment at sentencing. In this paper, I argue that such an approach to defining hate crime has restricted our understanding of the true nature and harms that acts of hatred cause. It has also enabled legislatures to focus their attentions almost solely on punitive responses to addressing what is a complex individual and structural problem. This paper challenges this conventional wisdom by outlining a new theoretical framework for conceptualising hate crime based on what I refer to as “social justice liberalism”. Using this framework I argue for the expansion of traditional conceptions of the harm principle – often restricted to measuring direct harms to other individuals – to include impacts that are directly causal to the social injustice of entire groups of people. Building on Young’s “faces of oppression”, the paper draws on empirical research to evidence how hate crimes directly undermine individuals’ interests and capacities to participate equally in society. I argue that if the law is to truly grapple with both the individual and structural impacts of hate, hate-based offences ought not just to be defined as “aggravated” forms of pre-existing criminal offences, but ought to be codified as distinct forms of criminality. It is only by conceptualising hate crime as a distinct type of wrong in law that can we begin to construct forms of regulation and criminal justice measures that adequately reflect and address its multi-layered harms.
Description Format
html
Recommended Citation
Walters, Mark, "Criminalizing Hate: Law as Social Justice Liberalism" (2023). International Conference on Hate Studies. 9.
https://repository.gonzaga.edu/icohs/2023/seventh/9
Full Text of Presentation
wf_no
Media Format
flash_audio
Session Title
Hate Crime and Speech Laws: Social Justice or Oppression
Type
Panel
Criminalizing Hate: Law as Social Justice Liberalism
Bigfoot Room 124
Much has been written about the purpose and justification of hate crime laws. Though not unequivocally settled, it is often claimed that hate crimes are pre-existing offences that “hurt more”, and under conventional theories of liberal criminal law, are therefore deserving of an enhanced punishment at sentencing. In this paper, I argue that such an approach to defining hate crime has restricted our understanding of the true nature and harms that acts of hatred cause. It has also enabled legislatures to focus their attentions almost solely on punitive responses to addressing what is a complex individual and structural problem. This paper challenges this conventional wisdom by outlining a new theoretical framework for conceptualising hate crime based on what I refer to as “social justice liberalism”. Using this framework I argue for the expansion of traditional conceptions of the harm principle – often restricted to measuring direct harms to other individuals – to include impacts that are directly causal to the social injustice of entire groups of people. Building on Young’s “faces of oppression”, the paper draws on empirical research to evidence how hate crimes directly undermine individuals’ interests and capacities to participate equally in society. I argue that if the law is to truly grapple with both the individual and structural impacts of hate, hate-based offences ought not just to be defined as “aggravated” forms of pre-existing criminal offences, but ought to be codified as distinct forms of criminality. It is only by conceptualising hate crime as a distinct type of wrong in law that can we begin to construct forms of regulation and criminal justice measures that adequately reflect and address its multi-layered harms.