| While there has been significant research on the effects of hate crimes on victims, there has been much less research into the effects of hate crime laws, especialloy with regard to the proportion of minority offenderss actually convicted. For example, black and Native American persons are twice as likely as Asian and white persons to be subject to arrest for commiting a hate crime. Moreover, hate crime laws mandate additional years in prison. Yet black inmates comprise 50% of the prison population but black persons represent less than 13% of the general population. However, it is not clear whether hate crime laws have in effect operated to maintain disproportionate prison populations, because it is not clear who has actually been convicted of hate crimes. To determine how the legal system processes hate crime incidents, the research reported in this paper is based on an analysis of hate crime convictions, as noted in appellate legal decisions dating from the 1800s to the present. While crimes motivated by hate were not called "hate crimes" until recently, through the use of vast computerized legal databases, it is possible to find comparable crimes that occurred before the enactment of hate crime laws and compare them with recent hate crime prosecutions. In particular, this paper contains a discussion of whether serious hate crimes have been treated any differently since the enactment of hate crime laws. |
Updated 05/20/2006