Talk:Hate crime laws in the United States/Archive 1

Usage of the term "White Power" In "See Also"
I've made the same argument on another page, which can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hate_crime#White_Power_is_Redundant_.3E_Refer_to_Racisim_Link

White Power or any type of white suprmacy isn't irealatent to racisim and how it pertains to hate crimes. Be that as it may, I don't see the point in sticking in every type of ethnocentrism out there such as Black Power, Asian power and so on. I move to delete the White Power under see also, as it is covered in detail under the See Also Racism link.--Saintlink 04:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Number of States With Hate Crimes Legislation
Unless I'm just confused, the number of states with hate crimes laws is incorrect. The entry lists seven states with no laws, 20 with laws omitting sexual orientation and 24 include sexual orientation. 20+24+7=51. There are 50 states. Is DC or Puerto Rico being included in this count? There is no link to the source of this count, so I can't verify it myself. 67.108.63.227 10:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hate crimes take many forms including: PHYSICAL ATTACKS THREAT OF ATTACK VERBAL ABUSE INSULTS

01:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)64.92.55.157 (talk) dinana64.92.55.157 (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin v. Yoder?
The wikipedia page on Wisconsin v. Yoder says that the case was about whether or not the Amish could keep their kids out of public school. Nowhere does the Wisconsin v. Yoder page talk about hate crimes. The connection to hate crimes needs to be either explained or deleted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.175.71.236 (talk) 22:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree that the case has no bearing on hate crimes. I have deleted this line. john factorial (talk) 16:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that they might have been referring to Wisconsin v. Mitchell?--Thesimulacra (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

near future updates
Some of the information in this article is summarized in the form of "X number of states have this kind of law", "Y number of states don't have this law", "Z number of states have such-and-such statistical gathering." I'm not sure how we keep track of all this info and how we update it to reflect the growing number of states improving their protections? The reason i bring this up is because in the state of Washington we might be adding protections for transgender people to the existing legislation less than four months from now. If and when that happens, i would like to update the portion of this wiki article with the corrected facts and figures, but i don't know how editors arrived at their original numbers reported here? I've been going through the wiki articles for LGBT Rights for various territories, and i've seen some very helpful maps, but i don't know the correct process for updating. Thank you for any help you might offer to explain these wiki processes. ~Teledildonix314~Talk~4-1-1~ 22:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The WA State Legislature passed Wednesday the transgender hate crimes expansion bill . So All that is left is the Governor's signature and then the 90 day wait for implementation period to pass.  I don't know how to make such updates here but I believe the original numbers are based off of information on the human rights campaign website. http://www.hrc.org/documents/hate_crime_laws.pdf.  Oh, and you can trust my info on bill passing as I've been the main one making sure it passed!  http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5952&year=2009  The bill, 5952, makes the definition in WA hate crimes law the same as in the labor law.....so gender identity and expression is incorporated into the law under the definition of sexual orientation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.217.109.32 (talk) 08:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistencies between article and graphic
The LGBT graphic implies that all states at least have some sort of hate crimes legislation, but the body of the text states that 5 state have no such legislation. 216.165.95.70 (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Anonymous

Washington state, NOT DC
Washington state just updated the hate crime statutes to include gender idenity. See sources    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 15:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Apples and Oranges
The article states:


 * For example, in 2004,[10] there were 7,649 criminal hate crime incidents, out of 1,367,009 violent crimes.[11] In perspective, in 2003 there were 4,500 accidental workplace fatalities and 13,900 fatalities due to accidental poisoning.[12]

Comparing violent crimes to hate crimes is reasonable, but the other comparisons are poorly chosen. A better comparison would be the number of hate crimes that resulted in death versus the number of accidental workplace fatalities or fatal poisonings. Alternatively, one could compare the total number of workplace accidents and poisonings, fatal or otherwise, to the number of hate crimes that involved violence. The overwhelming majority of hate crimes do not result in death. Comparing a set of largely non-lethal (and sometimes non-violent) incidents to statistics on fatalities that occur in other contexts might leave the reader with a false impression as to the magnitude of the problem. At the very least, this statement should be appended with some data on the number of hate crimes fatalities. 24.113.203.35 (talk) 04:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I appended information on homicide-related hate crimes in 2004 to the statement I previously mentioned. 24.113.203.35 (talk) 04:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I have now added statistical details involving hate crimes against persons (as opposed to property crimes) and provided a comparison between the total murder rate and the hate crime murder rate in 2004.24.113.203.35 (talk) 04:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Since the number of fatal hate crimes is very low, I have employed a comparison between lightning strike fatalities and hate crime fatalities in 2004 to provide some perspective to readers on the relative risks.24.113.203.35 (talk) 05:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * While I assume good faith in your additions, and while I agree that the original two sentences above, comparing "hate crime incidents" to "violent crimes", are comparing apples to oranges, I think comparing the chances of dying by lightning to the chances of dying by hate crime is equally unrelated. More to the point, drawing conclusions from two reliable sources to justify a new claim constitutes original research (specifically, sythnesis) and should not be included in Wikipedia. Instead, a secondary source explicitly comparing the prevalence of hate crimes to other types of crimes is needed here. That being said, per wp:BRD I have removed "In perspective" and the comparisons thereafter in hopes that a consensus can be reached.


 * I'd like to instead suggest a different approach. Instead of comparing the prevalence of hate crimes to other crimes, the section could show the prevalence of hate crimes over time. The FBI has methodically collected a wealth of data on hate crimes, published here, including yearly statistics for a variety of crimes against persons/property/society, such as murder, rape, theft, vandalism, etc. Going with the "prevalence over time" approach, I drafted up a table of Victims per year by Bias Motivation and posted it on this sandbox page. This victims data was on the FBI's first table, so I went with it, though Incidents per year by Bias Motivation may be a more appropriate table. You could also aggregate data across the years per incident, suspect, offenders, offenses, and others. Suggestions? Comments?Ruodyssey (talk) 11:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The table looks excellent and I have no issues with that. Removing the comparisons between other causes of death and fatal hate crimes is fine. I would only suggest leaving the comparison between the number of fatal hate crimes and the total murder rate in a certain year.  Hate crimes that result in fatalities attract a lot of media attention. Comparisons between total hate crime incidents and fatalities under other circumstances can be misleading.


 * I would agree that a table providing trends in the categories of hate crimes committed over the course of several years is worthwhile. While I would prefer to also have a table that provided some sense of proportion, like a table comparing the number of hate crime offenses in a single year by category of offense (murder, rape, intimidation, various property crimes) versus the total number of crimes committed by category during the same year, I leave the matter up to you.  The issue of synthesis is complex and involves some judgment calls.  During prior edits, I wasn't eager to remove other people's material and went overboard in attempting to provide balance to the previous existing statements. Sorry. Thanks for your assistance.  24.113.203.35 (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No problem. Synthesis is an easy mistake to make, so we must be careful not to draw conclusions. Now, I see the FBI has recently released its 2008 UCRs, so I will work toward making an Incidents per year by Bias Motivation table when I have more time. BTW, my only rationale for choosing incidents over victims is that this article is about "hate crimes" and not "victims of hate crimes", but it makes no difference to me.


 * For now, I drafted the requested table in the same sandbox comparing the number of 2008 hate crime offenses to the number of all 2008 US crimes offenses per offense type. It's a small table, since I felt I could only include categories that are mutual to both reports 1 and 2. (The latter is in the FBI's UCR for "Crime in the US" having similar categorization to that of their hate crime statistics.) The table also has no totals, since there are other, mutually exclusive offenses. Finally, I would like to wait a week or two before posting anything to see if someone else wants to chime in. Ruodyssey (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I just noticed the first sentence of the original comparison was still in the article, and so I removed it, too. It's not exactly clear what it was exemplifying, either; perhaps it was lost to editing. At any rate, this comparison table idea would would be far more descriptive and easier to read and update than prose that mingles hand-picked stats in my humble opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruodyssey (talk • contribs) 14:36, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The tables look great. 24.113.203.35 (talk) 17:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity is nationally protected: Graphic is outdated
The Matthew Shepard Act made sexual orientation and gender identity nationally protected on October 28th, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.209.37 (talk) 19:44, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Fix it. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't. The federal law does not supersede the states', the states' laws, like in antidiscrimination, have a broader scope than is allowed the Federal Government under the Constitution, and the federal law helps local law enforcement to prosecute, and does not prosecute itself (only in rare cases). Ssahsahnatye (talk) 22:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * In some states like California, there's a special provision law on harrassment, discrimination and unfair treatment of pregnant women. It is not only to protect her from potential phsyical harm, but pregnancy is a gender-related trait pertaining to women and a major part of her gender identity as a "woman", since women are able to be pregnant and have babies. Pregnancy Discrimination or harassment is an issue that is highly addressed by feminists and workplace human resources officials for quite some time. + 71.102.7.77 (talk) 00:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ssahsahnatye, no. In America there is what's known as a "Supremacy Clause" in our Constitution. This means that federal laws override state laws whether the several states believe the law is fair or it is not. Love it or hate it (I'm guessing you hate it), in the United States of America hate crimes include sexual orientation on a federal level. Those anti-gay hate crimes not prosecuted by the states or unable to be prosecuted by the states are taken up by the DoJ. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

May be viewed as hate crimes
Hate crimes such as discrimination, threats and/or actual acts of violence and publically airing hatred against homeless people, drug addicts and alcoholics, and anyone diagnosed with AIDS are considered hate crimes in most of the USA. What about attacking a person because they vote Democrat or Republican, and self-identify as a Conservative or Liberal? And those who are rich/upper-income and poor/lower-income, due to being scapegoated for social woes? In our civil and P-C society, people are brought up and told not to be discussing sensitive subject matter and ask about peoples' income, political affiliation and medical problems. Should we make it against state or federal law to discriminate based on weight? There has been activism among the Fat people community in the USA about how the media portrays obesity or fat people negatively, deals with social stigma and workplace discrimination (esp. in the mass media) and the national health care crisis is not true, but to nationally blame fat people as a public menace, therefore to insemminate anti-fat people feeling as the "last group of people to make fun of". + 71.102.7.77 (talk) 00:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * These are some interesting questions and points. Unfortunately they do not pertain to the improvement of this article. Perhaps you can write your Representative or Senators to state your grievances. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 22:31, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting Article, from ABA law Journal on the alternative uses of Legislation
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/queens_prosecutors_dont_require_hate_showing_in_new_use_of_hate_crimes_law Cheers Weaponbb7 (talk) 16:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Civil remedies
The last sentence under the section 1964 Federal Civil Rights Law says "victims of gender-motivated hate crimes can 'seek compensatory and punitive damages as well as injunctive and declaratory relief.'" This is not correct. There was a provision in the Violence Against Women Act that allowed for such civil remedies, but the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional in United States v. Morrison. I'm going to change the paragraph accordingly. Mktyscn (talk) 05:01, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

verify 2012 fbi url contains same data as rot link of 2009 visit?
for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime_laws_in_the_United_States#cite_note-9 footnote link: "^ "Table 2 - Hate Crime Statistics 2008". CJIS. Retrieved 17 December 2009.[dead link]" http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/data/table_02.html is now 404.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/data/table_02.html looks suspiciously like the current link to same content of 2009 visit, but I've too little idea of what 2009 visit dead page contained.

Also, other www.fbi urls may also now be www2.fbi urls2z2z (talk) 16:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)