By including the disabled in the Matthew Shepard hate-crimes bill, the authors went from sensible to extreme

Editorial writers at the Los Angeles Times argue that efforts to expand the federal definition of hate crimes may assure the failure of the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The editorial writers particularly object to including crimes based on disability in the definition of hate crimes.

Obviously, acts of violence or intimidation should be prosecuted aggressively regardless of the motive, and no doubt some are motivated by hatred of men or women or even (though this is hard to imagine) of disabled people. But such crimes are rare. According to the FBI, less than 1% of hate crimes in 2005 reflected a bias against the disabled.

(Emphasis added.)

See earlier stories:

Whether hate crime or bullying, it needs to stop

Disability abuse case called ‘tip of the iceberg’

Three wheelchair crimes

Three more wheelchair crimes

Elder abuse caught on tape

Man admits to urinating on ill woman

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 6:15 pm and is filed under abuse, discrimination, law, violence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post