Feel-good legislation
It looks like Arkansas might be poised to jump on the hate-crime bandwagon. The chorus of phraseology surrounding the hate-crime bill proposed in August last year includes verbiage like “long overdue” and “about time.” Part of the argument for the legislation is that not doing so makes Arkansas appear backward, because 47 states have already gone over the hatecrime-law cliff.
Perceptions are important. But criminal laws shouldn’t be about posturing. And they shouldn’t be passed as statements of support. A resolution by the General Assembly that doesn’t carry the weight of law would be more appropriate in such instances.
Generally, laws are proposed and passed as statutory solutions to a problem. And there are certainly some significant crime problems in Arkansas. Gun crimes and domestic violence spring to mind. Arkansas is a regular top-10 state in firearm murders, with a rate that is 40 percent higher than the national average. And, tragically, the Natural State occupies similar perennial prominence in the Violence Policy Center’s annual report of “When Men
Kill Women.”
Both of those nation-leading problems warrant legislative attention. It’d be nice to see Arkansas take the lead in 2021 on a Violent Offender Registry, with gun criminals highlighted. A half-dozen states have enacted such laws that require registration of violent predators similar to what federal law requires of sexual offenders, and our violent crime rate (which FBI data reporting ranks as fourth highest in the nation) is higher than all six of them.
It’d be nice to see legislation strengthening protections for women in domestic crisis situations. It’d be nice to see new laws providing greater assistance—medical, financial and rehabilitative—for victims of violent crimes.
Arkansas’ aggravated assault rate in 2019 was the highest ever—447 per 100,000 population (even worse than the 1990s)—and 78 percent higher than the national rate. The 242 murder victims in Arkansas in 2019 were the second-highest total in more than 20 years. The rate of forcible rape in Arkansas in 2019 was more than 80 percent higher than the nation’s average.
Those numbers all tie back to real victims, who suffer life-ending or life-altering traumas that often leave them damaged for decades.
In comparison, according to the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics report, there were a total of nine Arkansas hate-crime incidents reported in 2019.
That’s one more incident than what the FBI listed in its 1999 report, even though the number of participating state agencies increased from 192 to 278, and the state’s population grew by more than 450,000 people.
Indeed, though it hasn’t made headlines anywhere, the number of hate crimes nationwide is down from 1999. The 2019 FBI report lists a total of 7,314 bias-motivated criminal incidents, which is seven percent fewer than 1999’s 7,786 total. The 2019 total number of 8,559 offenses (some incidents include more than one offense) is also lower than 1999’s 9,301 offenses.
That’s notable if not remarkable, since the U.S. population has grown by 49 million people and the number of participating agencies rose from 12,122 in 1999 to 15,588 in 2019.
As in Arkansas, the nation’s other crime categories haven’t all fared as favorably. There were more murders and rapes nationwide in 2019 than in 1999.
Calculating by rate, which balances changes in population over time, the violent hate-crime rate in 1999 was 0.41 per 100,000 people. For 2019, the rate was 0.38 per 100,000—a seven percent decrease in an already infinitesimal figure.
By every measure and any analysis, the need or numerical justification for a hate-crime law today—especially in comparison to other crimes—is less now than it was 20 years ago.
From an image standpoint, it may be that enacting a law titled “Creating a Sentence Enhancement For Certain Offenses Against A Person Due To The Person’s Attributes; And To Require An Annual Report Concerning The Commission Of Hate Crimes In Arkansas” would also enhance our good feeling about ourselves.
It’s certainly a better name than that used by the last state to pass a hate-crime law, which was “Act to amend Article 1 of Chapter 10 of Title 17 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.”
The glad-handing and back-patting that may accompany joining the club of other hate-crime-law states will probably generate some positive publicity among people who weigh appearances over substance.
Arming prosecutors with additional arrows in their quiver might even result in finding a few more hate criminals in Arkansas than the FBI does.
But it won’t help the 13,000 or so Arkansans who will be violently assaulted with a weapon likely to cause death or severe bodily harm this year. Or the 2,300 Arkansans who will be forcibly raped. Or the 1,500 who will be robbed by force or violence.
If feel-good legislation is needed to improve the state’s image for economic development, or to give lawmakers a feeling of catch-up accomplishment, let’s do it and be done with it. Then maybe the General Assembly can begin tackling in earnest some of Arkansas’ real—and really harmful—violent crime problems.