Hate Crime Enhancement

"Does motive matter if the murder was committed with a malicious intent? For example, if I kill someone because I hate his skin color, or if I kill someone because he is in my way while I'm walking [...] does it matter?"~My quote --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Something I wanted to get cleared up. When I said "The person should not be given an extra sentence based on the motivation of their crime, they should be given a sentance based on the result of a crime." You responded with how we have to take motive into consideration because we wouldn't be able to differentiate self-defense etc. Obviously, in these cases, motive should be taken into effect. What my point was, was that when it's an action of malicious intent, motive doesn't matter (BECAUSE THE INTENT WAS TO KILL, SO THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE DEALT SOLELY OFF OF THIS). That's what I was speaking of when I asked to leave out accidents, self-defense, and things along this matter. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reasons for my opponent to support hate crime enhancements: 1. The limited potential for rehabilitating offenders. 2. The repercussions on the wider community(/ies). 3. Group directed hatred is more dangerous than hatred directed at a specific individual. 4. Prejudicial crimes deserve to be taken more seriously if Society is to battle the wider damage that prejudice does. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since these are my opponents reasons for the support of hate crime enhancements, lets go at them one by one. 1) >>>"The limited potential for rehabilitating offenders." == The current recidivism rate is 65.9%. Clearly, most criminals IN GENERAL cannot be rehabilitated. Plus, if they cannot be rehabilitated, then why keep them the extra time [...] it'll do not good according to you. 2) >>>"The repercussions on the wider community(/ies)." (I've combined this with 4) WHo are we to say that different views hinder our society? It isn't hindering us right now, and there is all sorts of prejudices present. How do you know that without prejudices the world will be better? How do you know it is worse with them? And how can you prove hate crime enhancements are helping ANYTHING?? 3) >>>>"Group directed hatred is more dangerous than hatred directed at a specific individual." How, they will commit a crime against anyone. Opposed to the hate criminal only towards a specific group? We lock all criminals away to protect them from all of society. How can you say they are more of a threat, when they only target a limited amount of society opposed to someone who will commit it against ANY and EVERYone? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>"Plenty (probably the vast majority) of serious crimes are related to greed and personal advancement rather than hatred.Of those that are to do with hatred the vast majority of these are probably cases of individually directed hatred such as revenge rather than hatred of a group, so not hate crimes." (this is what you've stated in your post just now) Let's thing for a second, comepletely outside of the debate (don't automatically deem everything I say bad because you're on the opposite side). If someone is willing to go at someone (with malicious intent), for revenge, to the point where they are willing to kill them, would you not consider that to be hate? Then, whatever the reason they hate them may be, is considered a hate crime, right? The term "hate" in the enhancement isn't preserved ONLY for racial disputes, it could e because the person is fat, because they are tall, because they did this, or because they did that. This said, what seperates the two? Can you see where I'm coming from on this point now? And because to commit a crime with malicious intent, you must first have to hate the person you're going against [...] there should be no seperation of punishment for hate crime offenders. You've stated taht you believe in the first ammenment rights, until they go outside of this and harm someone because of it. But when this happens, they should just get a standard punishment for the crime the committed, correct? Why is the enhancement necessary? Everyone has different views, so who are we to punish based off of their view, oppose to their actions? If I steal from someone, it shouldn't matter if I did it because the person is white, black, chinese, or tall. What should matter is that I stole from that person. Resolution Negated. Looking forward to your last speech, this has turned out quite interesting.