The Pros And Cons Of Hate Crime Laws

. Spaid argues that hate crime laws, sometimes referred to as “reform laws,” are ultimately ineffective, harmful, and maintain an oppressive and violent system in which it claims to resist. These laws “include crimes motivated by the gender identity and/or expression of the victim,” (79) implicated in seven states across the country, such as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, created after the hate murders of these two men fueled by bigotry and hate. Proponents of these laws argue that they would work as “preventative messages,” and increase the regard in which these crimes are considered, under the terms of preserving the humanity of these victims, often trans women, while increasing their visibility. These

Not only is violence and hate blatantly expressed in ways that hate crime laws are supposed to prevent and cease, but they are also expressed in these legal settings through physical and abusive mistreatment. This occurs when those incarcerated are denied medical and psychiatric care and resources, however, the system that does the punishing for hate crimes will never be punished for hate crimes, or crimes that it is delegated prevent. It is also extremely troublesome that police and the legal system that continuously and historically commits violent and hateful acts towards marginalized communities such as the trans community, are the ones who are delegated the role of preventing these offenses, and expected to uphold this duty, when history such as the Stonewall riots show that this is a dangerous course of action

Instead, this only increases criminalization, incarceration rates, policing, and only continues this cycle of hatred and bigotry fueled violence allotted by the state, because “the criminal punishment system itself is a significant source of racialized-gendered violence” (90). Criminal punishment and its legal system does not promote safety and non-violence but is rather “a site of enormous violence” and is the largest perpetrator of violence and hatred (90). This only allows more opportunities and resources for these exact system to strengthen and therefore continue to commit these hate acts of violence and disparity in increasing rates and severer forms, or as Spaid puts it, “provides even great opportunity for harmful systems to claim fairness and equality while continuing to kill us”