The Push to Pass Hate Crime Legislation in North Carolina
Demonstrators hold signs during a rally against anti-Asian hate crimes outside City Hall in Los Angeles, California in March. Source.
In the wake of the deadly Atlanta spa shooting that sent shockwaves through the nation in March, many North Carolina lawmakers are reviving efforts to pass a hate crime legislation. Previously introduced in 2018, the reintroduction of this bill is not only in response to the recent shooting, but also to the surge in violent crimes being committed against the Asian American community since the start of the pandemic.
The bill, known as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, offers expanded protection against hate crimes based on ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, and sexual orientation. Other components of the bill would include the creation of a statewide hate crimes database, which would be mandatory for law enforcement to utilize, and increased punishments for such crimes. An especially critical aspect of the bill, if signed into law, would be the required training of law enforcement officers and prosecutors on dealing with hate crimes. This training would provide law enforcement agencies with the appropriate resources to identify, respond to, and report hate crimes. The database will be used to drive policy changes, because it will provide evidence regarding the relevance of hate crimes, no longer allowing them to be dismissed as a non-issue.
This is the third time such a hate-crime bill has been filed in the NC legislature, each time led by Democratic lawmakers. Previous iterations of the bill in 2018 and 2019 never received hearings in the Republican-controlled legislature, despite how much Democrats such as NC Senator Jay Chaudhuri claim such a legislation would “build trust with our communities that are targeted by hate crimes.” The first iteration of the bill was inspired by the murders of three Muslim people in Chapel Hill, which was not classified as a hate crime despite their murderer posting anti-religious messages online preceding the killings. In the same vein, the recent Atlanta shootings have been rendered as the perpetrator having a “really bad day”, instead of being racially motivated.
Each effort to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act followed an incident that drew significant national attention, and Chaudhuri hopes that the increased attention to hate crimes will give the bill the momentum to finally get a hearing. President Biden’s recent insistence on passing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act within Congress should also give North Carolina legislatures some momentum to pass a hate crimes bill of their own. The recent passing of a hate crimes bill after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia by the Republican-controlled legislature last year shows that this issue is not necessarily partisan-divided, so there is hope in the future for such a passing of a hate crimes bill in North Carolina.