“The Ethics of Hate Crime Legislation: Balancing Individual Rights and Community Values”

You are to ground your essays in the material covered in Chapters 7, 8, and 9 only.
Your essay should be approximately 1000-1200 words.  Underline your thesis.
Many recent attacks on religious and racial minorities, as well as gays and lesbians, have prompted lawmakers to introduce more hate crime legislation, based on the outcry from their constituencies. But are hate crimes a valid subject for the law? A hate crime resembles a regular crime, but the intended victim is a member of a minority in society and the assailant targets him or her for that reason. Sentences for hate crimes typically are harsher than for their generic counterparts. The attribute that makes these crimes distinct is the element of hatred; and hatred, by itself, is merely an idea. Thus one could say that hate crime legislation prosecutes people for the crime of ideas, something that runs counter to our legal tradition of respect for the dignity of the individual. Prosecution of hate crimes also may use the criminal as a means (social satisfaction at punishing feelings of hate on top of an actual criminal act) rather than treat him or her as an end (someone who broke a law). On the other hand, hate crimes are horrid. They remind us of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews and other minorities, the slaughter of the Hutus in Rwanda, and the conflict between Serbs and Kosovars of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. And, there is some evidence that people who hate deeply will teach such hatred to their children and peers. Because we feel that institutionalized hatred runs counter to our idea of the free society, we attempt to criminalize such behavior in our midst. The two sides of the argument represent different values about our community, our ethical concept of punishment, and the role of government in our personal beliefs.
Essay Question: Do we need laws (or tougher laws) against hate crimes? Why? In answering this consider the related question is it ethical to prosecute people for their private feelings during a public crime?