4 Arrested In FB Video Torturing Of A Mentally Challenged Man

[FatAndFaithless]

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 prosecuted 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.

Fair enough - if they were enforced equally and consistently I'd be far more amenable to them (hate crime laws).  It's just that they're really not.