Is rape a "hate crime"?

Chia's but is certainly a stimulating topic. Perhaps it deserves it's own thread.

Fishin', so if a rapist said "You're a filthy whore. All women are filthy whores" would it be a hate crime?

Is the motivation for rape somehow very different from other crimes. I mean -- it's not really about sex. In court though, is sex considered to be the motivation or does it somehow provide an "explaination" for the assault.

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fishin wrote:

It isn't an automatic thing. If person "A" kills person "B" who happens to be of another race/gender/religion the question that arises is "What was the motivation for this crime?".

If person A killed person B because they cut them off on the freeway and flipped them the bird while they did it, it isn't a hate crime (it's road rage).

If person B's race/religion/gender is the motivation then it would fall under the hate crimes area.

Hmm.. I think there's two separate things here.

Rape has been classified as war crime, for example in the context of the Yugoslav wars. The reason was that, additionally to being a crime by an individual man against an individual woman, it was done - and intended - as part of a campaign of violence, even genocide, against another ethnic/religious group. Eg, the mass rapes in Bosnia, most focused in the assaults by Serbs on Muslims.

So thats analagous to prosecuting rape as a hate crime because it had an element of ethnic/religious/racial aggression.

But the thing Boom is asking - I think? - is whether rape is not (and could not be prosecuted as) a gender hate crime, against women.

I suppose if it can be shown that the perpetrator raped the woman as an attack on women, in general, it could be..

But then, yeah, you have the question coming up about whether most every rape is not, fundamentally, an attack on women because they're women.

Hm. Anyway, two things, then..

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The problem is that the additional categorization of hate crime has to be proved, and to do that, lawyers have to waste many many extra man-hours (and time is money, as you know) going back in somebody's life to try to prove that this person had hate for whatever group they supposedly hate. I'm guessing they'd need a lot more to go on than just one statement like that. It's all subjective. What constitutes enough evidence to make an offense a hate crime? Laws shouldn't be all shades of grey like that, if it can at all be helped. In effect, giving someone a stiffer sentence for their hateful views toward a certain group is almost equivalent to saying it's illegal to think hateful thoughts. Do we want to live in a society that throws people in jail for their thoughts? Just prosecute the person for what they did, not for their goddammed thoughts and opinions.

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fishin wrote:

boomerang wrote:
Rape is obviously based on gender (most of the time). But would they look at the rapsit life and say "he's had successful relationships with women so therefore he doesn't hate women and therefore it isn't a hate crime".

Do they do the same with other hate crimes? What if someone attacked someone because they were Hispanic? Would they look at the attacker and say "he's has Hispanic friends so this isn't a hate crime"?

How is the line drawn between a "crime" and "hate crime"?

It isn't an automatic thing. If person "A" kills person "B" who happens to be of another race/gender/religion the question that arises is "What was the motivation for this crime?".

If person A killed person B because they cut them off on the freeway and flipped them the bird while they did it, it isn't a hate crime (it's road rage).

If person B's race/religion/gender is the motivation then it would fall under the hate crimes area.

Use of derogatory racial, religious or gender terms during the commission of the crime could be an indicator of the motivation.

Interesting.

A lot of the raped women I have worked with experienced the most difficult to recover from aspect of the crime as being the the stream of gender based derogatory invective the rapist uttered as he raped them......

I don't really know from "hate crime"....but, from my experience, it certainly appears not uncommon that your criterion is met.

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That is exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking about, dlowan. Exactly.

And you got my question just right, nimh -- isn't the nature of the crime itself a crime against gender?

And we already do live in a society where your thoughts can send you to jail. And rightly so, in my opinion -- conspiracy and treason, for example.

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boomerang wrote:

And we already do live in a society where your thoughts can send you to jail. And rightly so, in my opinion -- conspiracy and treason, for example.

That is really, really scarey thinking. Conspiracy and treason? Suppose it were alleged that you conspired to undermine the morale of troops in Iraq--would the government be justified in prosecuting you for conspiracy and treason?

I don't think you thought that through before you posted it.

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boomerang wrote:

Fishin', so if a rapist said "You're a filthy whore. All women are filthy whores" would it be a hate crime?

It could be...

Quote:

Is the motivation for rape somehow very different from other crimes. I mean -- it's not really about sex. In court though, is sex considered to be the motivation or does it somehow provide an "explaination" for the assault.

Is there only one motiviation for rape?

I don't think the court looks at the broad clinical concept of motivation for a crime. I beleive they are limited ito looking at why "A" raped "B" only.

Let's say, for example, that "A" is a drug dealer. He shares an apartment with "B", his girlfiriend who also happens to be a crack addict. So "A" goes out for the afternoon to buy a new car and is gone for 6 hours. He comes home and finds his stash of 4 kilos is gone. He gets pissed and confronts "B" who breaks down and admits that she allowed some other friends into the house, got high with them, told them where the stash was and they grab it and run off with it. In a rage, "A" rapes "B" to "teach that whore a lesson".

Now, is the motivation for the rape here based on gender? Or is it based on revenge? Is the motivation here the same as the motivation of a guy that breaks into a random house at night and rapes a woman who is lying in bed asleep? Is it the same as a 23 year old guy that has sex with a willing 14 year old girl?

These are all forms of "rape" (as a general term) but the individual motivations are all different.

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Setanta wrote:

boomerang wrote:
And we already do live in a society where your thoughts can send you to jail. And rightly so, in my opinion -- conspiracy and treason, for example.

That is really, really scarey thinking. Conspiracy and treason? Suppose it were alleged that you conspired to undermine the morale of troops in Iraq--would the government be justified in prosecuting you for conspiracy and treason?

I don't think you thought that through before you posted it.

What if I conspired with someone to murder you. We planned it all out. We acquired what we needed to carry out our plot.

And then we're caught.

Do we deserve to go unpunished?

Say I steal a bunch of classified government documents and I'm looking for someone to sell them to.

And then I get caught.

Do I deserve to be punished only for theft?

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boomerang wrote:

Chia's but is certainly a stimulating topic. Perhaps it deserves it's own thread.

Fishin', so if a rapist said "You're a filthy whore. All women are filthy whores" would it be a hate crime?

Is the motivation for rape somehow very different from other crimes. I mean -- it's not really about sex. In court though, is sex considered to be the motivation or does it somehow provide an "explaination" for the assault.

The "it's not really about sex" thing is something I very much doubt in many, many cases....

I think that belief has been part of the attempt by feminists in the long campaign to change the view of rape as being the woman's fault, and to begin to see it as the serious assaultive crime it is. I think it is partly true, but not totally true.

Sadly, I suspect rape has been a useful strategy over the millenia for many men to pass on their genes, and is part of the reproduction strategy for our species, and we have developed a series of beliefs to support it in latter years (like the good woman/whore dichotomy, the "she's asking for it" thing....the "she really wants it when she says no" thing...which all too many of us still believe...and not just men.)

Certainly, I think that for many rapists, part of the sexual pleasure of the act is domination, but, while it is a fine point, I suspect the dominance for many is part of the sexual rush, rather than the sex being a part of the dominance rush.

Remember, the violent stranger rape is the exception, not the rule...most rapists are known to the victim, boyfriends, dates and what have you.

Certainly, in organised campaigns of rape where rape is used as a weapon, as is, as Nimh pointed out, common in war, I suspect the motives are also very much power and the destruction of the morale of a population, as well as men feeling entitled to do as they wish in a situation where normal moral constraints break down.

But....I certainly think a lot of rape IS based on the perpetrator having hatred and contempt of women for one reason or other....even if it is normally reasonably well controlled, or if he makes exceptions for some women.

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nimh wrote:

So thats analagous to prosecuting rape as a hate crime because it had an element of ethnic/religious/racial aggression.

But the thing Boom is asking - I think? - is whether rape is not (and could not be prosecuted as) a gender hate crime, against women.

It's an interesting line of thought. In this sense, rape is intrinsically a hate crime to the same extent that, say, child abuse is. Both can rhetorically be made to look like they target specific groups. Determining whether that is the actual intent behind specific instances of rape and child abuse is tricky business, as Kickycan mentioned.

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Conspiracy to commit murder is already a crime. The theft of classified materials for sale to foreign operatives for personal gain is already a crime.

Your remark was made in the context of "thought crime." I find your comment both incomprehensible and very frightening. What kind of "thought crime" would constitute conspiracy and treason? What kind of thoughts would justify sending someone to jail for conspiracy and treason?

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nimh wrote:

But the thing Boom is asking - I think? - is whether rape is not (and could not be prosecuted as) a gender hate crime, against women.

The flaw with thinking that rape = automatic hate crime based on gender is that in some jurisdictions the legal definition of rape can and does include same gender crimes. Rape has been known to occur within gay relationships for example.

So, if the "hate crime" moniker is automaticlly applied to the definition of rape because it is a "crime against women" what happens when no woman is involved?

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I see your point, fishin'.

For the purposes of my question let's say it is a stranger rape and the rapist unleashes vile comments about "all women". Could that potentially be prosecuted as a hate crime?

And if it were, would the sentence be different?

According to the DOJ (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf) the average sentence for rape is 117 months. The average time served is 65 months.

I can't seem to come up with the stats on hate crimes.

I know what your saying, Setanta, but I still think they're thought crimes.

What if I conspire with someone to kill Victim by running over him with my car. I haven't actually done anything except thought about it and talked about it. I haven't even bought anything to use in committing the crime. I think I could still go to jail if my plan was found out.

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boomerang wrote:

I know what your saying, Setanta, but I still think they're thought crimes.

What if I conspire with someone to kill Victim by running over him with my car. I haven't actually done anything except thought about it and talked about it. I haven't even bought anything to use in committing the crime. I think I could still go to jail if my plan was found out.

I don't believe you could go to jail for simply thinking about it--and i don't think you should. Do you really want to live in a society which can prosecute for what you think? How do you propose that authority police your thoughts?

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boomerang wrote:

I see your point, fishin'.

For the purposes of my question let's say it is a stranger rape and the rapist unleashes vile comments about "all women". Could that potentially be prosecuted as a hate crime?

And if it were, would the sentence be different?

According to the DOJ (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf) the average sentence for rape is 117 months. The average time served is 65 months.

I can't seem to come up with the stats on hate crimes.

I know what your saying, Setanta, but I still think they're thought crimes.

What if I conspire with someone to kill Victim by running over him with my car. I haven't actually done anything except thought about it and talked about it. I haven't even bought anything to use in committing the crime. I think I could still go to jail if my plan was found out.

Hard enough to convict anyone for rape...much less adding a hate crime component to it, even if that were desirable.

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Maybe I've made a bunch of notes recording Victim's schedule titled "Best time to kill Victim" and my co-conspirator rats me out.

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boomerang wrote:

I see your point, fishin'.

For the purposes of my question let's say it is a stranger rape and the rapist unleashes vile comments about "all women". Could that potentially be prosecuted as a hate crime?

And if it were, would the sentence be different?

According to the DOJ (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf) the average sentence for rape is 117 months. The average time served is 65 months.

I can't seem to come up with the stats on hate crimes.

I'd have to guess that there is a very good possibility that it could be prosecuted as a hate crime.

I don't think you'll have an easy time finding stats because Federal law currently doesn't cover gender or sexual orientation as a protected class in hate crime laws and every state has their own definition of what is or isn't a hate crime. In many states it would be a hate crime to paint a swastika on the side of a Synagogue but there is no provision for hate crimes to include crimes against a person.

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boomerang wrote:

Maybe I've made a bunch of notes recording Victim's schedule titled "Best time to kill Victim" and my co-conspirator rats me out.

You can dance all you want--you said, in the context of "your thoughts can send you to jail," that you thought it was right that that were so, and used conspiracy and treason as examples. As i've already pointed out, conspiracy to commit murder is already a crime--but thinking thoughts which someone else considers treasonable is not necessarily a crime, and i don't think it should be. Conspiracy to commit criminal acts is a crime; but policing people's thoughts and branding some of them treason is a prescription for Big Brother's society right out of 1984.

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I'm not trying to dance. I do think they're crimes that people can be convicted for but not actually do. If you're caught before you can carry out the crime you can still be punished -- for your thoughts.

Planning a crime is just thinking about how to do it.

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That is a case of being convicted of criminal conspiracy--and it's a difficult case for a prosecutor to prove.

I still think you're dancing. You said you think it is a good thing for people to go to jail for their thoughts. I disagree most emphatically.

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Is rape a "hate crime"?

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