The hate crime law recently enacted in Georgia could bring other states that resist similar legislation into action.
Lawmakers in Arkansas and South Carolina have initiated efforts to promote hate crime legislation, spurred on by the example of Georgia, Wall Street Newspaper reports.
The Georgia law signed on June 26 by Governor Brian Kemp lengthens the sentence in cases where the victim was targeted on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or other prejudice and creates a database of hate crimes.
An earlier Georgia law was overturned by the state’s supreme court in 2004. But the impetus for the new law increased after the death of Ahmaud Arbery in February, a 25-year-old black man shot while running in a predominantly white neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia Three white individuals are facing murder charges after the video of the incident was released.
According to the new Georgia law, a person found guilty of committing a crime motivated by prejudice would face six to 12 months in prison, in addition to any penalty imposed for the original crime, along with a fine of up to $ 5,000 for one. five misdemeanor offenses and at least two years in prison for a serious offense.
This law also specifically requires police officers to prepare and submit a written report, called the “Bias Crime Report”, when investigating any crime that appears to be a hate crime, whether imprisoned or not.
Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming are the only lawless states that penalize prejudice-based crimes.
Historically, leadership in these Republican-controlled states has resisted hate crime legislation, claiming that existing laws are adequate to deal with these types of crimes.
But, in the wake of George Floyd’s police killings, as well as other African-American men and women this year, bipartisan support for hate crime legislation has grown as part of a national recognition of systemic racial prejudice.
The FBI recently reported that hate crimes are at their highest level in more than a decade.