State and federal hate crime laws punish crimes involving discrimination on the basis of a person's group characteristic, such as race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, or disability. The Supreme Court has refined the definition of hate crime through decisions which affirmed one type of hate crime law, but rejected another. Punishing hate crimes is consistent with the traditional aims of our criminal justice system. Our criminal laws consistently enhance penalties for seemingly similar conduct based on the risk, severity, and context of a particular crime. Carefully drafted hate crime laws punish conduct that is objectively more dangerous to victims and society.
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Brian Levin (1999) studied this question.
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