Every year, the day sneaks on up Judy Shepard to deliver its sucker
punch from the past: The 12th of October. The day Matthew died.
"It hits you and you say to yourself: Oh, this is the day," she says. "This is why I feel so terrible."
Fifteen years ago this week, gay college student Matthew Shepard
was pistol-whipped and left for dead: unconscious, barely alive, lashed
to a jagged wooden fence outside this small prairie city by two men
disgusted by his homosexuality. A passerby mistook the diminutive,
105-pound Shepard for a scarecrow — a forlorn and unthinkable image that
still haunts a generation of Americans.
Judy Shepard refuses to
associate her son with that image or with the date that he died, six
days after the attack. Instead, she summons memories of her eldest boy
on Dec. 1, his birthday, celebrating his love for politics, languages
and the spectacle of the musical "The Phantom of the Opera."
Read on...
Your resource for news, research, opinion and comment in the world of Criminology and Criminal Justice, brought to you by the Criminology Library, Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
Showing posts with label hate crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hate crimes. Show all posts
Police-reported hate crimes, 2011
Police-reported hate crimes declined for a second consecutive year in 2011. Canadian police services reported 1,332 hate crimes in 2011 or 3.9 hate crimes per 100,000 population. The rate was 5% lower than in 2010.
In 2011, three primary motivations accounted for over 95% of hate crimes, with race or ethnicity representing over half (52%) of the total, followed by religious hate crimes at 25% and crimes motivated by sexual orientation at 18%. Read on...
What Happens When the Amish Go to Prison?
Do they have to shave and wear orange jumpsuits?
Sixteen members of a breakaway Amish sect were convicted of hate crimes
in Ohio on Thursday. The jury found them guilty of violently shaving
the hair and beards of disfavored members of the community, and they now
face up to 20 years in prison. How do American prisons accommodate the
old-fashioned religious practices of Amish people?
They don’t, for the most part. State and federal prison systems don’t
have special regulations for the tiny number of Amish serving extended
sentences, many of them for sex offenses.
The Amish reject most modern technology and dress. In prison, however,
their cells have electric lighting and climate control, they wear orange jumpsuits,
and they are transported between the prison and the courthouse in vans,
just like other inmates. Prison administrators generally require
prisoners to keep their beards trimmed, but wardens sometimes allow
exceptions for religious reasons.
U.S. prisons are required to accommodate religious beliefs under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act,
but inmates’ religious freedoms are tempered by security and cost
concerns. Striking this balance has proven challenging for judges. In
the case of facial hair, for example, courts have struck down outright beard bans,
but agreed with wardens that excessively long or unkempt facial hair
prevents guards from quickly identifying inmates. Prisoners who require
special meals have also met with mixed responses. An inmate can demand a
halal meal, but it is often just the prison’s vegetarian meal, because
the facility refuses to pay the added expense of halal butchering.
Read on...
Read on...
Tyler and Trayvon
IN 2009 President Obama signed a federal bias crimes law named for the victims of two gruesome 1998 atrocities: the young gay man who was tortured, lashed to a fence and left to die; and the black man chained to the back of a pickup by white supremacists and dragged until he was dismembered. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act joined a 40-year accumulation of statutes declaring that crimes committed with a mind full of racial spite or anti-Semitism or homophobic hatred should be punished more severely than identical crimes committed for greed or vengeance.
Today the notion is embedded in our culture. Almost every state has some variety of hate crime law. The most recent F.B.I. count, for 2010, reports 6,628 “criminal incidents” involving bias — instances where local authorities judged that the offender was motivated by hatred of a particular group. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld disparate penalties for bias crimes in 1993. The A.C.L.U., after years of resisting, endorsed a hate crime bill in 2005.
But the fact that it is constitutional and commonplace does not quiet the nagging sense that hate crime legislation resembles something from an Orwell dystopia. Horrific crimes deserve stern justice, but don’t we want to be careful about criminalizing a defect of character? Because our founders believed that democracy requires great latitude for dissent, America, virtually alone in the developed world, protects the right to speak or publish the most odious points of view. And yet the government is authorized to punish you for thinking those vile things, if you think them in the course of committing a crime.
This is an New York Times op-ed. Tom
Hate crimes against gay, transgender people rise, report says
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs report says violent crimes against people in the LGBT community rose 13% in 2010, and that minorities and transgender women were more likely to be targeted.
An 18-year-old gay man from Texas allegedly slain by a classmate who feared a sexual advance. A 31-year-old transgender woman from Pennsylvania found dead with a pillowcase around her head. A 24-year-old lesbian from Florida purportedly killed by her girlfriend's father, who disapproved of the relationship.The homicides are a sampling of 2010 crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people compiled by a national coalition of anti-hate organizations.
The report, released Tuesday, showed a 13% increase over 2009 in violent crimes committed against people because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity or status as HIV positive, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
Last year's homicide count reached 27, up from 22 in 2009, and was the second-highest total since the coalition began tracking such crimes in 1996. Of those killed, 70% were minorities and 44% were transgender women.
Read on...
Hate Crimes In Canada: Statistics Canada Notes Large Jump In Police Reports In 2009
THE CANADIAN PRESS -- The number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased 42 per cent in 2009, says a new study released today.
Canadian police services reported 1,473 hate crimes in 2009, up by 437 incidents. That came on the heels of a 35 per cent increase in 2008.
Statistics Canada says more than half (54 per cent) of police-reported hate crimes in 2009 were motivated by race or ethnicity, 29 per cent by religion and 13 per cent by sexual orientation.
All increased, especially hate crimes motivated by religion, which rose 55 per cent, the agency says.
The number of racially motivated hate crimes was up 35 per cent, it says, while those motivated by sexual orientation went up 18 per cent.
"Violent offences, such as assault, accounted for about four in 10 hate crimes reported by police. Violent offences were particularly more common among hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation."
Hate crimes up by one-third in 2008
Most motivated by race or ethnicity, but incidents related to sexual orientation more than double
Jill Mahoney
Jill Mahoney
Hate crimes reported to police increased by one-third in 2008, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
Police forces logged 1,036 hate crimes in 2008, up 35 per cent from 2007. More than half the incidents were motivated by race or ethnicity, one-quarter by religion and 16 per cent by sexual orientation.
While all three categories recorded increases over 2007 levels, those motivated by sexual orientation more than doubled and were the most violent in nature, Statscan said in a report released Monday.
Task Force: Signing of Hate Crimes Measure Is Historic
"Laws embody the values of our nation, and through the enactment of this hate crimes law, our country has — once and for all — sent a clear and unequivocal message that it rejects and condemns all forms of hate violence, including crimes motivated by hatred of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
— National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey
WASHINGTON - October 28 - President Obama today signed federal hate crimes legislation into law. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will help protect people against violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, gender, national origin and disability by extending the federal hate crimes statute. It will provide critical federal resources to state and local agencies to equip local officers with the tools they need to prosecute hate crimes. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey will attend the commemorative event later today at the White House.
Do Hate Crime Laws Do Any Good?
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted August 4, 2009.
There's no indication that getting hate crimes on the books actually prevents them.
"We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line." -- President Bill Clinton, final State of the Union Address, January 27, 2000.
There's no indication that getting hate crimes on the books actually prevents them.
"We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line." -- President Bill Clinton, final State of the Union Address, January 27, 2000.
It was a year-and-a-half after the horrific torture-murder of James Byrd Jr., the African American man who was assaulted, chained to a pickup truck and dragged for 3 miles by three white men in Jasper, Texas, a crime that the New York Times called "one of the grisliest racial killings in recent American history."
A few months later came the similarly brutal killing of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man who was savagely beaten and left to die in Laramie, Wyoming.
The perpetrators in both cases were slapped with severe punishments -- life sentences for Shepard's killers, and two death sentences and one life sentence for Byrd's. Nonetheless, in the emotional public upheaval that followed, both cases became rallying cries for the passage of state laws to toughen the sentences for hate-motivated crimes.
Jury Finds Teens Not Guilty of Hate Crime in Beating Death of Latino
By David Neiwert , Orcinus. Posted May 6, 2009.
The facts of the case were clear, but an all-white jury decided to let a mob of racist teens off easy.
You don't have to have been from rural Pennsylvania to have been able to predict the outcome of this case:
Some satisfied, others outraged with verdict for immigrant's death
Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.
Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.
Read on...
Jury nullification in PA. tom
The facts of the case were clear, but an all-white jury decided to let a mob of racist teens off easy.
You don't have to have been from rural Pennsylvania to have been able to predict the outcome of this case:
Some satisfied, others outraged with verdict for immigrant's death
Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.
Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.
Read on...
Jury nullification in PA. tom
The Impending Perfect Wingnut Hate Storm
by Vyan
We've all seen the warning signs and heard the angry cries from Wingnuttia - but it's time to stop laughing and recognize a very real threat that faces this nation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center headed by Morris Dees is the countries premier anti-hate resource, and in it's current yearly "Intelligence Report" on the activities of various domestic Hate Groups, there are more than a few familiar faces.
This week a report detailing at least 60 Post-9/11 plots of violence by Militant Right-Wing Militia and Birther groups was spiked in Missouri under the argument that sharing the information with Officers in the field would have been Political Profiling!
Read on...
Add in a bit of economic collapse and you have a toxic mix. Tom
We've all seen the warning signs and heard the angry cries from Wingnuttia - but it's time to stop laughing and recognize a very real threat that faces this nation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center headed by Morris Dees is the countries premier anti-hate resource, and in it's current yearly "Intelligence Report" on the activities of various domestic Hate Groups, there are more than a few familiar faces.
This week a report detailing at least 60 Post-9/11 plots of violence by Militant Right-Wing Militia and Birther groups was spiked in Missouri under the argument that sharing the information with Officers in the field would have been Political Profiling!
Read on...
Add in a bit of economic collapse and you have a toxic mix. Tom
Hate Crimes on Rise, Warn US Groups
by Alison Raphael
WASHINGTON - Leading civil rights groups today denounced the rise in hate crimes taking place in the United States, especially against Hispanics, and called for passage of a proposal that would ensure federal jurisdiction when local officials fail to act.
Hate crimes against Hispanics have risen steadily for the last four years, and crimes against African-American, Asian-American, and Jewish people, as well as gays and lesbians, all increased last year, according to FBI statistics gathered for its Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
In recent weeks alone several incidents have taken place, including the murder of 37-year-old Ecuadorian citizen Marcello Lucero by a group of Long Island teenagers, cross-burnings in New Jersey, and the timely arrest of skinheads planning to assassinate Barack Obama in Tennessee.
Read on...
WASHINGTON - Leading civil rights groups today denounced the rise in hate crimes taking place in the United States, especially against Hispanics, and called for passage of a proposal that would ensure federal jurisdiction when local officials fail to act.
Hate crimes against Hispanics have risen steadily for the last four years, and crimes against African-American, Asian-American, and Jewish people, as well as gays and lesbians, all increased last year, according to FBI statistics gathered for its Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
In recent weeks alone several incidents have taken place, including the murder of 37-year-old Ecuadorian citizen Marcello Lucero by a group of Long Island teenagers, cross-burnings in New Jersey, and the timely arrest of skinheads planning to assassinate Barack Obama in Tennessee.
Read on...
New FBI Hate Crime Statistics Confirm Need for Stronger Federal Response
NEW YORK - October 27 - Hate crime statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show a continued upward trend in certain categories of bias motivated violence in 2007 and confirm the need for a more vigorous response by the federal government, including enactment of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act (S.1105, H.R. 1592) and other steps outlined in a recent report by Human Rights First.
"There have been some glaring omissions in the federal government's response to a serious and growing problem of hate crime violence," said Tad Stahnke, the Director of Human Rights First's Fighting Discrimination Program. "The United States has both legislation and an extensive monitoring system on hate crimes. However, several steps should be taken to help ensure that the climate surrounding illegal immigration does not contribute to impunity for those who perpetrate violence targeting them and to strengthen the federal and local law enforcement response to all hate crime, including increased violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity bias."
Read on...
"There have been some glaring omissions in the federal government's response to a serious and growing problem of hate crime violence," said Tad Stahnke, the Director of Human Rights First's Fighting Discrimination Program. "The United States has both legislation and an extensive monitoring system on hate crimes. However, several steps should be taken to help ensure that the climate surrounding illegal immigration does not contribute to impunity for those who perpetrate violence targeting them and to strengthen the federal and local law enforcement response to all hate crime, including increased violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity bias."
Read on...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)