The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act / Matthew Shepard Act gives the Justice Department the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence by providing the department with jurisdiction over crimes of violence where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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2 comments:
I'm probably not going to be too popular here, but going to throw my opinions out.
Criminals don't care who they go after. They're already committing a crime and setting aside those on some kind of mind altering substance, they are going to go after the weakest in the herd, if you're a darwinist you'll recognize natural selection.
Bias, bigotry, and racism have always existed and no amount of local, state, federal, global laws will ever be able to legislate that out of humans, it's impossible.
Adding a harsher sentence to it, given that we have the largest prison population in the world and horribly overcrowded prisons seems to be counter productive. Take into account the cost the additional sentence will have associated with it and the fact that you're probably just fueling the fire by putting into close contact people who may hate someone based on any number of factors. Can you explain how this is beneficial?
I'm white, if I call someone...uh, what's a popular derogatory term for a white person these days, well if I scream that while beating them or robbing them am I subject to a hate crime? Does it only apply to someone of a different race or any of the other categories used to divide people? That's what this really is, just another way to further drive people apart.
Wouldn't the justice dept's time and resources be better spent focusing on the main crime in any one event and larger more important crimes in general? Kidnappings, murder, rape, missing persons?
It would be much easier to address the problem without government involvement earlier in life and by example.
Good post.
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