MA Groups: Local Hate-Crime Enforcement Needs Beefing Up
Lily Bohlke – Commonwealth News Service
This week marks two years since the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and the three men convicted for his murder have now been found guilty of hate crimes in federal court.
Civil rights groups applaud the verdict but said more hate-crime enforcement needs to be done locally.
Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston, pointed to a recent case in East Boston where a woman and her daughter were waking home and speaking in Spanish, and a white assailant physically and verbally attacked them, telling them to “speak English” and “go back to your country.”
Sellstrom noted the sentencing was lenient: just 15 months of probation.
“That type of violence against someone based on their identity, that goes beyond the physical assault and really is emotionally and mentally damaging,” Sellstrom pointed out. “Not only to the victims but to others in their community who may learn about the attacks.”
Sellstrom argued law enforcement officials at all levels need to take hate crimes more seriously.
He noted police often do not investigate crimes as hate crimes even when it is clear a crime was motivated by prejudice.
Similarly, he observed district attorneys and judges often are reluctant to charge and decide cases as hate crimes.
Rep. Tram Nguyen, D-Andover, said it is why she has sponsored a bill to clarify and simplify existing hate-crime statutes. She explained the bill would clarify crimes are still chargeable as hate crimes even if there is mixed motivation, or in other words, there does not need to be just a single motive.
“It also added gender and immigration status as protected classes,” Nguyen emphasized. “It mandates data collection, which will give us a better indication of exactly how hate crimes play out in our Commonwealth. And it added a restorative-justice component for perpetrators who are willing to make restitution.”
Nguyen added the goal is to send a message hate and discrimination do not have a place in Massachusetts, despite the uptick in hate crimes, according to a report from the Baker administration.
“We all know that crimes are not just crimes against the individual,” Nguyen asserted. “They’re crimes against entire communities. They’re meant to terrorize entire communities. We don’t want to wait for the next hate-crime incident to happen here in Massachusetts.”