Hate Crime Laws: A Venue of Further Oppression, by Tania Garcia

As we have continued to examine and ponder the ways in which injustice against the LGBTQIA+ community is perpetuated, we have come across the question of hate crime laws. Hate crimes, according to the FBI, are: “a criminal offense against a person, or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation ethnicity, gender or gender identity.” This definition and by extension the creation of such laws, is seemingly a step towards progress; it indicates a recognition, inclusion and punishment for acts of violence against people based on their individual preferences. However, the creation and push for hate crime laws is a band-aid response, a temporary relief for individual and exclusive acts of violence. This in and of itself, is problematic and arbitrary. 

Violence against the LGBTQIA+ community is not an individualized act, it should therefore not be treated as so. Hate crime laws according to Mogul, Ritchie and Whitlock, authors of Queer (In)Justice, believe that hate crime laws do not serve the “intended” purpose. They do not fully address the problem of violence based on bias and fail to deter such crimes (pg. 126-27). Brian Alongi, author of The Negative Ramification of Hate Crime Legislation, has found that there is not enough evidence to prove that these laws serve as a deterrence. Inconsistencies with data exist due to the differing state legislation regarding hate crimes, differing police training and reporting of hate crimes, as well as lack of effective reporting (pg. 340). This lack of consistency make the hate crime legislation selective and exclusive in nature, it therefore, cannot provide an equal protection under the law to the people they are intended to serve.

There is a failure to recognize that acts of violence are not individual, they are part of larger, overarching systems: laws, prejudices and religious views. These systems often incentivize rather than prevent acts of violence. For this same reason, the laws do not cause a deterrence and protection; there is no effort to prevent the acts and promote safety/ inclusion but rather a system of “when it happens” is created. Such is the case of Fred Martinez, a 16 year-old youth who was brutally murdered because of his identity. At the time of his murder, hate crime laws were already in place but that didn’t deter the murderer. The implementation of hate crime laws did not prevent or promote Fred’s safety, he was bullied and harassed. But these laws were created to wait, ready to use at the moment in which an oppressed individual like him, needed a response to violence. A system of “when it happens”,  is not created in the interests (prevention, safety and acceptance) of the oppressed but rather commits and perpetuates the same acts of injustice as the system it was created by. 

These hate crime laws are created and enforced by a larger and oppressive system, the U.S. criminal legal system. As Mogul, Ritchie and Whitlock explained, hate crime laws are often used against the same people they are intended to protect. This is counterproductive, arbitrary and unjust. Hate crime laws and the criminal justice system are often complicit of working against people based on their age, class, race, and gender (a.k.a. bias).  As mentioned before, the use of hate crime laws has not only been ineffective in deterring/preventing violence but fails to recognize a more criminal form of violence, institutional/state violence. Throughout Queer (In)justice, institutional acts of violence against LGBTQIA+ individuals include endangerment of the individual, negation of their humanity and cyclical re-victimization. Tiffany Berrutti, author of The Problem with Hate Crime Laws makes an important and notable argument, “the problem with hate crime laws is that they support the system, both physically and ideologically. Unintended or not, this blind spot of hate crime laws proves to be problematic, as it never addresses bias and is highly selective of what constitutes as hate crime. 

Although the creation and use of hate crime laws may be comforting and reassuring, it’s oppressive and negligent nature make them ineffective. They fail to address multiple layers of oppression one may experience. This is especially true for those that lie at intersections, queer youth of color for example. As suggested by Lorde in her essay of Age, Race, Class and Sex, we tend to consider them as exclusive conditions. The exclusiveness and sole us of differences among those marginalized, whether that be differences in race, gender, age, etc., are used as modes to validate the entirety of an oppression. But what happens to those that experience multiple levels of oppression? The system of hate crimes is indifferent to such experience and only validates/acknowledges a single condition of oppression, thus a hierarchical value of oppressions/conditions is created. One form of oppression is given greater value than another, this is arbitrary and insensitive to people’s identity. 

     Hate crime laws are not ideal and instead continue to perpetuate violence against the LGBTQIA+ community. The system is flawed and has multiple layers of blind spots, accounting for the further oppression of the community. It is because of this that relying on hate crime laws should no longer be at the top of LGBTQIA+ activists list. It proves that there is much work left to do, urging us to continue educating ourselves and those surrounding us. Without a clear understanding of violence against the community and the intersections of others, a hate crime system cannot work in favor of those that are marginalized.