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Punishment - Hate

‘I think that the deterrent argument is simply a rationalization. The motive for punishment is revenge – not deterrence. …punishment is hate.’ (Neill, 1971, as cited in Solomon, 1990, p. 272) Neither hate nor punishment has exactly the same meaning in a legal world as they have in our everyday life (Jacobs & Potter, 1998; Brooks, 2012). This paper will deal with both conceptions, as the legal notions. The main claim of this paper: A process of punishing somebody is similarly oppressive, stigmatising and marginalising as hate crime. First of all, to explain the role of hate in hate crime, an analysis of some popular understandings of hate crime will be provided. Taking into account the recent history of hate crime and its usual character, this paper will consider it as extension of the existing oppression experienced by minority groups in a society (Perry, 2001), where violent act is either purely based on bias (as a minimum) or a mixed motive (bias and other incentives) (Lawrence, 1999) and is used by an agent as an effective tool of ‘doing difference’ to maintain hegemonic position in the society (Perry, 2001).