Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Kimberly Potter (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Americans were told that "hate crime" was on the rise throughout the nation. Numerous advocacy groups lobbied for--and achieved--the passage of laws specifically engineered to document the rise in hate crime and dole out extra punishment for perpetrators who chose their victims on the basis of race, ethnic group, religion, or sexual orientation. But were these legislative efforts necessary?

James B. Jacobs and Kimberly Potter suggest not. They argue that the definitions of "hate crime" are often too vague to be meaningful. They cite the case of a black man who robbed white people simply because he believed they had more money than blacks and who did not abuse whites with racial invective as he committed his crimes, as an example. Jacobs and Potter point out that "whether or not the authors of hate crime legislation meant to cover [such] offenders, these are the individuals who dominate the statistics." They then analyze the statistical data and find no evidence supporting the belief that hate-instigated violence is on the rise; they also find that the majority of reported hate crimes are low-level offenses such as vandalism and "intimidation." Brutal assaults and murders, while they may provide grist for media sensationalists, are rare.

Jacobs and Potter also argue convincingly that the development of hate-crime legislation arises from the identity politics movements which have gained strength since the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Essentially, according to their line of reasoning, claims of the existence of a hate-crime epidemic and laws punishing hate crimes serve two purposes. One, they allow minorities to express outrage at the way they are being treated by society. Two, they allow nonminorities to act as if they understand minorities' pain and reaffirm the uncontroversial belief that prejudice and bigotry are wrong. But crime, the authors suggest, is not simply "a subcategory of the intergroup struggles between races, ethnic groups, religious groups, genders, and people of different sexual orientations." Hate-crime laws may even, they warn, exacerbate perceived differences rather than create harmony.

Hate--or, more accurate, bigotry--is wrong. Crime is also wrong. But Jacobs and Potter make a convincing argument against considering crime tinged with bigotry worse than unadulterated crime. "The enforcement of generic criminal law," they conclude, "is adequate to vindicate the interests of 'hate crime' victims as it is of other crime victims."

Review

This slim, well-written volume does the legal heavy lifting of many books five times its size. -- The New York Times Book Review, Richard Dooling

Where's the problem with the laws themselves? To that, Hates Crimes offers a wide-ranging response, and a number of its arguments hit the target. -- The Wall Street Journal, David Andrew Price

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195114485
• ISBN-13: 978-0195114485
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #969,440 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The writing is wooden; but the arguments are excellent., December 12, 1998

By	Craig Klugman (Fort Wayne, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This is the book to read if, like a lot of us, you were outraged by the killing of the gay student in Wyoming and want to do something about it. "Hate Crimes: Criminal Law & Identity Politics" makes clear that what we SHOULDN'T do is adopt more legislation singling out hate crimes for special punishment. The authors are sensitive to the plight of victims. But they point out, in subdued, legalistic language, the morass of problems that can face us: Which groups should be included? Why is one victim's suffering worthy of more punishment than another's? Isn't there a danger that hate-crime investigations will end up being an inquiry into the criminal's thoughts?

The only problem with this book is the writing. It's not particularly bad. But it isn't compelling. The organization of each chapter is professorial (one of the authors is a law professor). Segments are pedantically labled, as if they were lecture notes and not a book about a widening legal and societal issue that is intrinsically interesting. The authors end chapters with conclusions that reiterate what we have just read. The writing feels as if the authors dictated it, then lightly edited it.

But the writing weaknesses are only a small impediment. A serious reader, worried about how to deal with crimes committed out of bigotry, will find this book thought-provoking and, at the end, convincing.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sober well reasoned, November 19, 1999

By	Tom Munro "tomfrombrunswick" (Melbourne, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is a clearly written and well researched discussion of the notion of "Hate Crime". It clearly shows that the tendency of some states in the United States to pass hate crime legislation is a poor response to a complex phenomena. The authors show that in fact hate crime has been declining and the passing of laws probably lead society to become more divisive.

The statistical material suggests in fact that there has been a decline in prejudice over time and that current criminal laws handle issues of social conflict in an adequate way. The setting up of hate crime units and the passing of laws has achieved little and used scarce resources.

Hate crimes it would appear are an issue that is pushed by parties of the left in the United States. (Perhaps more accurately parties of the not so right). This attack however is not some piece of political rhetoric based on a political position but a clear inditment of poorly worked out social policy.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable to both the student of law and the layman., March 13, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book methodically deconstructs the ideas behind the notion of "hate crime" and proceeds to smash them one by one.

The only area not distinctly attended to is the near monolothic double-standard applied to enforcing hate crimes mostly against white male heterosexual offenders.