4 Arrested In FB Video Torturing Of A Mentally Challenged Man

[brewer]

It's all over the morning news here. 

What do I think, sociopaths in training. 

To much condemnation? OK, just kids being kids.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'd be interested to hear the forum's opinions on hate crime laws, though, instead of just condemning an obviously-condemnable act.

[Edwardo Piet]

I refer you to Boru's thread about whether motivation is relevant to morality or not.

[robvalue]

How utterly horrible

I'm not very well informed on what difference it makes if something is a hate crime. Does it mean tougher sentencing? If so, why?

I suppose hate crimes can be seen as inciting more violence by example.

[FatAndFaithless]

I refer you to Boru's thread about whether motivation is relevant to morality or not.

Well, I'd say this isn't really about morality, but rather legality and legislation.

---

How utterly horrible

I'm not very well informed on what difference it makes if something is a hate crime. Does it mean tougher sentencing? If so, why?

I suppose hate crimes can be seen as inciting more violence by example.

FBI's definition (which is more or less identical to most definitions) - “a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

And yeah, it results in tougher sentencing.  The issue is the laws are very unevenly enforced, and sometimes it can be very ambiguous whether or not a crime is a hate crime. On the other hand, in some situations it's explicitly clear that a crime fits the definition of a hate crime (as in the case in the OP), but it's not classified as such for one reason or another.

[Amarok]

Of course this is a hate crime why is this even controversy seriously

Was there some kind of point to this post?

[Edwardo Piet]

My thoughts exactly. It's just like any other hate crime. It deserves no more nor less attention. The real issue is that someone was tortured by 4 other people. Regardless of whether it's 4 white guys torturing a black guy or 4 black guys torturing a white guy, or whatever. It makes no difference. The awful thing is this involves hate and torture. Skin color doesn't matter.

[Napoléon]

FBI's definition (which is more or less identical to most definitions) - “a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

And yeah, it results in tougher sentencing.  The issue is the laws are very unevenly enforced, and sometimes it can be very ambiguous whether or not a crime is a hate crime.  On the other hand, in some situations it's explicitly clear that a crime fits the definition of a hate crime (as in the case in the OP), but it's not classified as such for one reason or another.

I don't think there's any ambiguity here, by any definition this is a hate crime. It's whether some dickhead judge decides to enforce the law.

In terms of whether we really need hate crime laws, maybe there's an explanation somewhere when it was first conceived to have them. It's not an essential component of prosecuting cunts like this but it does help denote the severity of their actions, beyond something that is already pretty heinous. The distinction between a crime fuelled by hate and otherwise, is usually a fairly important one IMO.

[account_inactive]

So far nobody on this forum has defended the attackers, which is honestly surprising.

Let's see how long that lasts.

[Napoléon]

Was there some kind of point to this post?

What a typical asshole response. It has 77 thousand upvotes on reddit but you twats like to insinuate that it's not newsworthy.

The point of the post was to share something newsworthy, in the news section of this forum. Fucking mindblowing eh?