browngirl

I feel like this relates to the often-asked questions about why the legal system has “hate crime” as a category. “Shouldn’t ‘crime’ be sufficient?” Usually the reply is something about sending a message that attacking someone purely for their race, gender, etc, will not be tolerated; but I think on the level of the individual crime, if it’s provable that the accused not only attacked the victim, but attacked on the basis of category, rather than anything the individual did – then that attacker is *extremely* likely to strike again, and that needs to be taken into account in the sentencing.