HR2662 Marching Against Hate Crimes on Feet of Clay
By Richard Bergeon
In the year 2003 hate crimes had 9,100 victims arising from 8,715 separate criminal offenses. While every state reported some incidents, reporting by law enforcement is voluntary and it is believed that hate crimes are drastically under-reported. About two-thirds of these crimes were committed against minorities. Racially motivated bias accounted for more than half (51.4%) and ethnicity/national origin bias with 13.7% making up a total of 65.1% of all incidents.
Current law limits federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to incidents against protected classes that occur only during the exercise of federally protected activities -- such as voting. Four states have no hate crime laws and 21 states have extremely weak ones. This makes it extremely difficult for state and local authorities to investigate and prosecute hate crime offenders. They simply do not have the funds or the authority to reallocate them to fight hate crimes.
HR 2662, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005, authorizes federal assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies and simplifies the federal laws covering investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.
State and local authorities are given the mandate to continue to prosecute the overwhelming majority of hate crimes under this legislation, but they now have the assistance of an Intergovernmental Assistance Program created by this legislation. The Justice Department will provide technical, forensic or prosecutorial assistance to state and local law enforcement officials. The Attorney General may make grants to state and local law enforcement agencies that have incurred extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.
There are, unfortunately, constraints added to this bill. Supposedly to ensure restraints on federal overzealousness, the Attorney General or other high-ranking Justice Department officials must approve all prosecutions undertaken under the authority provided by this law. The argument is that this is a way to ensure that the states will continue to take the lead and allow them to assume jurisdiction before it is taken by federal law enforcement agencies. In effect it says that states must appeal for federal support from the Justice Department before they can get assistance in pursuing their investigations or they might not get federal support. This also allows state law enforcement agencies to block federal involvement in hate crimes - if the state agencies are so inclined.
© 2005 OCA-Greater Seattle
OCA - GREATER SEATTLE CHAPTER