Should we punish hate? Remarks about
the concept of hate crimes
In the face of growing interest in the concept of hate crimes in Poland, the aim
of this article is to present a few queries concerning this institution. Focusing
on the so-called “racial animus” model of hate crime legislation there are presented
main justifications of this concept (inter alia the so-called “greater harm
argument” and the so-called “greater culpability of hate argument”) and there
are discussed and developed various critical arguments referring to it. There is
also commented the recent attempt to reform the Polish Criminal Code. Authors
of the project explicitly refer to the concept of hate crimes. However, due to the
very narrow scope of the proposed amendment, one can make a statement that
the shape of planned changes corresponds to the widely shared understanding of
the concept of hate crimes only to an insignificant extent. Thus, it appears that
the project should not refer to the discussed institution at all. Due to a number
of important problems (philosophical, social, and related to legal dogmatics),
possible decisions to introduce hate crimes in legal system should be preceded
by an in-depth reflection. However, due to the described issues, one can venture
an assertion that this institution should not be introduced at all.