Human Rights Maps (167): Hate Crime Laws

I’ve expressed my views on hate crime laws many times before, and I don’t want to rehash the old arguments: that it’s wrong to equate hate crime laws with hate speech laws, that there is no free speech, freedom of thought or freedom of religion problem here etc. So let’s cut to the chase.

Here are the States of the US that have hate crime laws covering crimes motivated by race, religion or ethnicity:

blue: presence of hate crime laws covering crimes motivated by race, religion or ethnicity, dd Oct 2009

(source)

An interesting question is to what extent the concept of hate crime should be open to modification: when is it appropriate or necessary to include new groups? Whereas a lot of hate crime legislation is limited to attacks on racial or religious groups, other laws include sexual orientation and gender identity, in which case homosexuals and transgendered people enjoy added protection:

hate crime legislation including secual orientation and gender identity

(source)

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(source, click image to enlarge)

Data on Europe are below:

hate crime laws incl. sexual orientation in Romania, Croatia & Greece

(source, the full version of this map is here)

Another hate crime map here. More human rights maps here.