Should faking a hate crime BE a hate crime?

A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership (or perceived membership) in a certain social group or race. -Wikipedia

By that definition faking being a victim of hate crime is logically also a hate crime, but under most hate-crime laws making false statements to police with the intent to target a social group or race are not hate crimes.

Should faking a hate crime also be covered under federal and state hate-crime laws?

Should it matter if a particular person is wrongly implicated in a fake hate crime?

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Itā€™s not a crime? Sounds like it should be if somehow not.

The only problem being that hate crimes laws generally only apply to some really heinous acts that fall outside what basically amount to lies.

Though I do believe that anyone caught faking a hate crime incident should face some serious penalties.

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Agreed.

Regardless of political ideologies, I donā€™t think folks that fake hate crimes will find much support anywhere, much like those that actually commit hate crimes donā€™t get support.

Hate crimes are treated as separate offenses and/or add to the severity of an offense that is already criminal.

For example here is the text of the law in Illinois:

A person commits hate crime when, by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or national origin of another individual or group of individuals, regardless of the existence of any other motivating factor or factors, he or she commits assault, battery, aggravated assault, intimidation, stalking, cyberstalking, misdemeanor theft, criminal trespass to residence, misdemeanor criminal damage to property, criminal trespass to vehicle, criminal trespass to real property, mob action, disorderly conduct, transmission of obscene messages, harassment by telephone, or harassment through electronic communications as these crimes . . .
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/documents/072000050K12-7.1.htm

Damaging property is already a crime. Spray-painting anti-Semitic slurs or Nazi symbols is on a synagogue is also a hate crime in addition to be the crime of damaging property.

On the other hand, making false statements to police is a crime, but making false statements to police about a fake hate crime is not a hate crime. Should it be?

Should make false statements to police about a fake hate crime carry additional penalties?

Filing a fake police report has always been a crime.

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I assume youā€™re referring to the Jussie Smollett case? Facts arenā€™t all in yet, but it certainly doesnā€™t look good.

I think I get where youā€™re going with this. At this point Iā€™m sure itā€™s treated like any other false crime report. The victim isnā€™t the one who determines the hate crime status, so Iā€™m not sure how are you would punish them more severely for false reporting. Honestly, Iā€™d be more inclined to throw the book at someone for a false claim of rape, because of how that gets used to justify or dismiss very real crimes. Youā€™d have to set a very high bar for ā€œreckless disregard for the truthā€, or something like that.

Yes, but Jussie Smollett is just the most recent case involving an alleged fake hate crimes. My point is that if spray-painting racial slurs on someoneā€™s home is a hate crime, then logically spray-painting slurs on your own home and falsely claiming to police that a neighbor was responsible should also be a hate crime.

Yes, and so are all the other crimes listed in the example hate-crime statute in the earlier post.

Should making a false police report for fake hate crime be a hate crime if the intent was to frame someone based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.?

depending on how you go about it are we talking about giving judges more flexible when setnecing?

The point of hate crime laws are to give judges more flexibility in sentencing issuing harder sentence for minor crimes. I would agree that those who fake such an attack should be giving a more serious sentence then someone who simply fake a police report to something like insurance fraud.

I wouldnā€™t oppose that.

If someone is fabricating a hate crime they are causing damage on multiple fronts, not the least being that people who are legitimate victims might be less inclined to come forward.

I vehemently oppose hate crimes.

However, if someone fakes a ā€œhate crimeā€ and it causes someone to be falsely arrested or otherwise impacted, then yeah, I would not oppose the faker being charged with some ā€œhate crimeā€ of some type.

I can see the logic in that. Your hypothetical homeowner is creating a boogeyman (racist, homophobe, etc) for the sole purpose of spreading hate.

If committing a ā€˜hateā€™ crimes carries enhancements in addition to the crime itself it seems only fair that faking a ā€˜hateā€™ crime carry enhancements in addition to the original crime.

That is true. The problem is enforcement. In these racial hoaxes, charges are rarely filed. Which is why we have so many. The guilty face no real consequences. That needs to change. Smollett should go to jail. But everyone knows that he will not.

Can you provide such an example?

I suspect this is yet another one of your predictions that will fail to come true.

I believe that he will almost certainly be charged, and will almost certainly spend some time in jail.

Twana Brawly, Duke Lacross. And I could find more. But I donā€™t feel like doing the research right now. You may of you like.