What characterizes a crime as a hate crime?

Crimes can be categorized in several ways. Commonly reported crimes include theft, robbery, assault, and murder. Hate crimes, however, involve additional charges and often result in harsher sentences.

What specifically makes a crime a hate crime?

The defining factor of hate crime cases is the perpetrator's intent: Did the crime stem from hostility towards the victim's race, religion, sexual orientation, or another protected characteristic? Hate crime legislation typically supplements the primary offense, such as assault or murder, and intensifies the punishment due to the discriminatory nature of the crime. For instance, while it’s not illegal to casually use racial slurs, if you physically harm someone due to racial prejudice, the crime becomes significantly more severe in the eyes of the law.

Moreover, because hate crimes are determined by the offender’s intent, the victim doesn’t need to actually belong to the group the perpetrator thought they were targeting in order for the crime to be classified as a hate crime. For instance, if someone assaults you because they believe you’re Jewish, but you’re actually an agnostic Catholic, it still qualifies as a hate crime. In other words: being mistaken about the intended target doesn’t excuse bigotry under the law.

If crimes like robbery and assault are already classified as crimes, why do we need separate laws defining them as hate crimes?

Hate crimes are driven more by how a person is perceived than by anything they actually say or do, which makes them particularly disturbing for both the victim and the wider community. As stated by the Offices of the United States Attorneys:

"When victims of hate crimes are chosen based on attributes such as their race or religion, it can create a sense of vulnerability among others in the community who share those characteristics, leading to secondary victimization. The fear of becoming a target of violence can be almost as harmful as experiencing the crime itself. The message of intolerance conveyed by a hate crime can have far-reaching social consequences, causing greater distrust toward law enforcement and increasing tensions between racial or religious communities.”

State-level hate crime statutes protect additional groups beyond those covered by federal laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Only five states lack hate crime laws. Many state laws address crimes driven by biases against disabilities, sexual orientation, and gender, with some extending protection to transgender individuals, gender identity, age, and even political affiliation.

Being able to designate an offense as a federal hate crime allows agencies such as the FBI to intervene when state or local authorities are either unable or unwilling to pursue prosecution. It also allows for federal funding to assist local law enforcement in advancing the case. For example, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 expanded federal hate crime laws to include crimes driven by a victim’s gender, sexual orientation, and disability, in addition to enhancing the FBI's capacity to investigate hate crimes.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was brutally beaten, tortured, and left to die. At that time, because sexual orientation wasn’t recognized as a federally protected category, the Department of Justice was unable to assist the local police in Laramie, Wyoming, and pursuing justice became so financially burdensome that the police department had to furlough five officers to cover expenses.

James Byrd Jr., an African-American man from Texas, was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck in 1998. Even though Texas did have hate crime legislation, it was deemed too vague to be enforceable.

However, some people find hate crime laws to be contentious. Some advocates for free speech are concerned that such laws might be used to stifle freedom of expression, but in practice, these laws generally focus on criminal actions rather than hate speech. For instance, in 2004, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the state's hate crimes statute, claiming its wording was too broad because it did not specify which groups were protected. It applied to all victims targeted due to “bias or prejudice.” In May 2017, Texas expanded its hate crime laws to include police officers as a protected group, following the deadly 2016 ambush on Dallas police officers, though the state is also subject to all federal hate crime statutes.

The federal government’s hate crime laws have been upheld as constitutionally sound. A 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Wisconsin v. Mitchell affirmed the legality of enhanced penalties based on a person's beliefs. Lawyers representing a young black man who incited an attack on a white man due to his race argued that the five additional years added to his sentence for committing a hate crime violated his First and 14th Amendment rights. However, the Supreme Court disagreed, maintaining the validity of harsher penalties for hate crimes.

Given that hate crime laws are partially based on the impact such offenses have on the wider community, does that mean a terrorist attack qualifies as a hate crime?

A terrorist attack is not always classified as a hate crime, but it certainly can be. The FBI defines terrorism as a violent act meant to intimidate civilians or influence government policy, often through tactics like mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. For instance, in 2016, the FBI classified the tragic mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub as both an act of terrorism and a hate crime, stating that the shooter was driven by anti-gay sentiment and his belief that his actions were in retaliation for American airstrikes in the Middle East.