>CB: Criminal laws are said to be ,not only for rehabilitation of the
>offender, but to _deter_ others from committing the crimes. Criminal laws
>and all laws have a didactic function, supposedly. So, might such heavier
>sentences discourage prejudice in children whose parents say "look, don't do
>that " ? What hate crimes do is focus the didactic message on the racism ,
>which is a good thing for society to do.
Is law also about upholding our ideals as a society, too, perhaps even regardless as to what "works"? E.g., if we say that our ideal is that we shouldn't harm others _because_ of their membership in a group, then isn't it reasonable to punish people for doing that too, in addition to whatever else they did. As we discussed here before, we already have a tradition of punishing perpetrators on the basis of the mental states: was it purposeful? in cold blood? for money? an accident? negligence? if a transman is beaten and killed because he dares be a transman -- calling into question the regime of heteronormativity -- I don't think that liberals want such laws because they want to act tough. I think it's because they believe that, just as we punish someone more for killing for money than we do for killing from passion, then there's no reason why we can't punish someone more for committing crimes in the name of racism, ablism, hetero/sexism.
i don't much care whether it works or not in that sense. I do care what message we send to people of color, women, queers, and so forth. If oppression works like the bird cage in Marilyn frye's essay, then our fight against oppression can and does take on many angles. there is no one bar that we can attack that will dismantle oppression. Rather, there are many bars and this is but on of them
Arguments against hate crimes, when they stay within this frame of accepting that some people should be punished for their state of mind, but rejecting the idea that such punishment 'can work' for racism, etc. are simply incoherent. (Carrol and Yoshie, OTOH, seem to be working outside this frame in their critique of the bourgeois state.) If measured as to whether they 'work' or not, it may not be the case that punishment actually works.
Finally, sometimes punishment isn't about fixing the perpetrator but making amends to a group of people harmed by this system. Charles and the lawyers can correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that as part of Ethics 101.
Kelley