faith crime?

[El D]

With the acceptance of race crime incurring greater penalties now widespread, is it not time to penalise those who commit offences based on their religious beliefs? Surely the underlying assumption is the same?

[Peter Pedant]

you mean burning them for heresy ?

The obvious venue is Smithfield - I'll go and stoke one up now....

[woofgang]

I have said this before but why is it worse to get a kicking because you are green or methodist? Violence is violence and verbal abuse is verbal abuse. Its all bad manners of an extreme kind and should all be dealt with in the same way

[jimmer]

how do you want to penalise them exactly?

[woofgang]

well but the penalty should be the same, I was going to say regardless of motivation but that's not exactly true, there should be mitigation for self defence etc. but doing something nasty to someone based on your religeous beliefs is no better or worse that doing something nasty to someone because you are a selfish unprincipled little toad.... Its all bad manners

[jimmer]

woofgang

that's right, but for good reason we do treat certain crimes more seriously than others. I have a lot of sympathy with what you are saying because if i got assaulted I would like the attacker to be severely punished. However, as i understand it the law distinguishes racially or religiously motivated crimes because they tend to be more serious and are based on prejudice. If we had an increase in serious crime against say children would you not want the law to react with tougher sentences against those who attacked children?



El D.



The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 places the same emphasis on religiously motivated crimes as racially motivated crimes and places a duty on the court to treat them more seriously.



jim

[Romeo]

How do you define a 'crime' in this case?

[El D]

Wasnt aware of that Jim - doesn't get the same publicity and I have never heard of it being mentioned. Ah well learn something every day.

A crime in this case would be any normal crime Romeo.