Post by Logan on Feb 8, 2016 4:13:09 GMT -6
INDIANAPOLIS - Forty-five states have hate crime laws, but Indiana isn’t one of them.
Indiana was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold and the Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 15 hate groups currently operating — which it defines as groups that “attack or malign an entire class of people” regardless of whether the group advocates for or engages in violence or other criminal activity. Efforts to add a hate crime designation to the criminal code have failed for years amid concerns that it would elevate one type of crime over others that could be equally brutal.
That could soon change. Two state senators — an urban Democrat a rural Republican — have co-authored a measure that would create a hate crime designation allowing for stiffer sentences by taking into account a victims’ “perceived or actual race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability, national origin, ancestry or sexual orientation.”
“I think it sends a very strong message to the people inside Indiana and the people outside Indiana that Hoosiers don’t hate,” said Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange, who sponsored the bill with Earline Rogers, a Democrat from Gary.
Read more: www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/indiana/2016/02/07/two-indiana-state-senators-have-co-authored-measure-would-create-hate-crime-designation-allowing-stiffer-sentences/79969686/
Indiana was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold and the Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 15 hate groups currently operating — which it defines as groups that “attack or malign an entire class of people” regardless of whether the group advocates for or engages in violence or other criminal activity. Efforts to add a hate crime designation to the criminal code have failed for years amid concerns that it would elevate one type of crime over others that could be equally brutal.
That could soon change. Two state senators — an urban Democrat a rural Republican — have co-authored a measure that would create a hate crime designation allowing for stiffer sentences by taking into account a victims’ “perceived or actual race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability, national origin, ancestry or sexual orientation.”
“I think it sends a very strong message to the people inside Indiana and the people outside Indiana that Hoosiers don’t hate,” said Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange, who sponsored the bill with Earline Rogers, a Democrat from Gary.
Read more: www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/indiana/2016/02/07/two-indiana-state-senators-have-co-authored-measure-would-create-hate-crime-designation-allowing-stiffer-sentences/79969686/