Assault (hate crime reprise?)

"Assault is an extremely communicatory crime and can only be committed in a communicative manner . A communicatory crime is one in which there is an ‘interaction’ (a discourse, of sorts) between the perpetrator and the victim. This concept does not cover whole (generally defined) Crimes but rather covers (particular) instances of crimes. Only those crimes which may be perpetrated on a person-to-person (or persons-to-person etc) basis fall within this concept. Thus, certain thefts (car-jacking, robbery) may be communicative whereas others aren’t (the carrier’s case, theft by finding). Assault by its very definitional essence as an ‘attack’ can only be communicative. This distinction becomes very important later in this discussion when we turn to consider why it is especially important that the Draft Criminal Code’s law on Aggravations applies to assault."

There's something niggling at me here. I can get what I'm getting at (that there's some sort of conversation going on between an assaulter and an assaultee because there is a sort of immanence/dialogue between two people who are THERE) but I can't get out of the back of my mind "yeh, but theft is also communicating something - I like yr stuff, gimme". So is it an issue that assault is more personal (ie I like yr skin I'm gonna flesch it off with my belt-buckle) than theft (because its about the object, not the person)? But then how much thieving is done out of spite? I'm not sure much. And how personal are assaults? Well why else would you assault someone. Well, because they are of a race/gender/persuasion you don't like? But, yeah, then that would be more personal?

Can YOU see what I'm getting at?

I'm trying to tie this into a Durkheimian argument for Hate Crime. If I have time I'll explain what that sentence means.