ABSTRACT
… A common view among respondents in the Boston pilot was that hate crimes are distinct from the same underlying crimes without a bias motivation because they inflict greater harms. This view provided the dominant justification for the extra punishment attached to hate crimes. There is a only a small amount of empirical work indicating the harms generated by hate crimes. In this context, it is instructive to conceptualize the harms suggested by respondents in the Boston pilot, as they provide the core of their justification for hate crime laws, and provide the initial step in the logic of their argument. We might think of the harms generated by hate crimes as waves of harm that spread well beyond the individual victim, and consequently, the targeted individual may be regarded as only the initial victim.
