Racism isn't allowed, so why not discrimination because of dress sense/music?

the motivation for a crime should never affect its punishment. it doesnt matter if a white person killed a black person, or if a prep killed a goth. what matters is that one person killed another. by enacting hate crime laws youre only supporting the idea that people are not created equal. people will always find reasons to hate other people, whether its their race, their personality, or where they live, there will always be hate. and when has any violent crime ever been committed that wasnt out of hate? it doesnt matter why you do/did it, it just matters that you did, and now need to be punished for it.

I read this story today and I have to say it moved me to tears, what a terribly heartbreaking thing, and she was such a beautiful looking girl. The law should be changed you are right, what is 5 years to the lifetime of pain that the family and that girls boyfriend are going to go through. To me any crime of this nature should be dealt with more seriously, to me the length and strength of the punishments do not match the crimes committed in any crime.

First I should strees that this was a terrible crime - absolutely awful. But I agree with another contributor who said that killing is killing no matter what the motives. It doesn't make it worse because it was done by someone who didn't like the victim's clothes. Sometimes it's hard to say whether a crime was racially motivated anyway and I think it would also be difficult to prove that a crime occurred because someone was a goth (or any other type of person). Far from becoming more tolerant I think on the whole people are more narrow minded than ever. this is another sad example.

Just linking the story for reference http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3538222.ece Very sad story, it didn't have to happen at all. The reason why people allow discrimination of dress sense/music, or looks is because people revel in it. People are pathetic, put one thing thats different from them, one person that completely breaks their mental stereotypes/expectations and you'll most always get a negative response. Pragmatically though, putting more of a crime on emo or other groups can't really be done since there is no concrete unchangable factor in it (i.e. people are born black, brown, yellow, red, mixed, homosexual, but ways to dress are changible/controllable and 'ugly' is too amorphous to be grouped for the sake of law.) There shouldn't be any extra treatment due to differences. There should be awarness yes, but extra sentencing due to race or affiliation, can't work. Assault is assault, murder is murder. Charge everyone the same for the crime despite what affiliation the victim is. And while we are at it, eliminate any special treatment or excusing criminals based on affiliation/minority status. If Sophie's killers only get 5 years... that should be an exclamation mark of the failure that is justice (maybe the failure that is "humanity" too). If it was up to me we'd throw them in jail for 50 years (5 years...what a joke. Hmph, the dark in me has a "fix them" plan of a nice 5 year beatdown as a punishment... -_-).

I think it should class as a hate crime. I've been following this case on the bbc website recently. Absolutely sickening what happened. I hate to hear any stories like this, it's just so stragic and uncalled for. Those kids that did it should be kept away for a long time, I never actually saw if they gave a full verdict as in how long and where? any info?