Hating the haters

Fayetteville eyes label for misdemeanors

Hatred is an awful emotion, one that ultimately does more harm to the one who feels it than to the person who might be targeted because of it. Why? Because it erodes the soul.

The presence of hatred is, however, a fact of life that deserves to be called out as wrong.

That’s understandably at least part of the reasoning behind a proposal to the Fayetteville City Council de- signed to empower the city prosecutor to present evidence of “hate crime intention” in misdemeanor cases to a judge in municipal court and, potentially, to a jury if a lower court’s finding is appealed.

Hate crime legislation is a big topic in Arkansas right now. A bipartisan group of lawmakers and other advocates released a draft bill they hope to pursue in the state General Assembly’s next session in January. Arkansas remains one of the few states without sentences that can be extended for felony crimes motivated by hatred based on some identifying characteristic — one’s gender, race, sexual orientation, religion.

The statewide legislation sponsored by Sen. Jim Hendren, a Republican of Sulphur Springs, and backed by others would also provide added sentencing for felony crimes that target people based on ethnicity, disability, homelessness or service in the armed forced.

Does it have a chance of passing? Yes, a chance. It’s garnered support of Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a 2022 gubernatorial candidate, as well as business leaders who say the lack of statewide hate crime legislation in Arkansas hurts the efforts to recruit businesses and workers.

Arkansas, Wyoming and South Carolina are the only three states that have no hate crime legislation. Hendren contends it would do lasting damage if Arkansas ends up being the last state in the nation with no hate crime legislation. We agree. The state hate crime bill, or something similar, should become Arkansas law.

Then there’s Fayetteville, a town where some city leaders show little faith in state officials on such matters, and with reason. State law is no where near as strong as many Fayetteville officials want it to be.

In Fayetteville, resistance at the state Capitol chafes. So advocates for what might be termed more progressive policies look for opportunities to achieve through city ordinance locally what can’t or hasn’t been achieved through the state Legislature.

Now enter City Council member Teresa Turk’s proposal to allow, but not require, the Fayetteville city prosecutor to “prove a hate crime element” on misdemeanors including battery, coercion, terroristic threatening, arson, criminal mischief, filing a false report with a law enforcement agency, disorderly conduct, harassment, harassing communications, communicating a false alarm, threatening a fire or bombing, cyberbullying and stalking.

The tricky thing is, according to City Attorney Kit Williams, the city has no power to “enhance” any penalty for a state-defined misdemeanor, which generally involves fines and anything ranging from no jail time up to a year in the county jail.

If the max is the max, what would Fayetteville gain? Turk’s proposal would add a violation of municipal code dubbed the “Hate Crime Recognition as Deterrence Code.” In other words, if the city prosecutor charges someone with a misdemeanor and believes he can build a case that the criminal behavior involved “the intention or purpose to hurt, intimidate or terrorize the victim” based on certain characteristics, perhaps just labeling the misdemeanor as a “hate crime” will be a deterrent against such horrible motivations.

We’re told, and we believe it, that labels diminish people by myopically categorizing them, often for the purposes of discriminatory or otherwise unfair treatment.

We also consider misdemeanors for what they are — the lowest level of criminal infraction. Yes, they can hurt people. Yes, they can damage property. But it seems too aggressive, to us, to attach “hate crime” labels as aggressively as one might for a felony crime.

A misdemeanor should not become a lifelong albatross. A label of “hater” could last far, far longer than the penalty one pays for the actual misdemeanor, and be more damaging. The goal of this proposed ordinance is to take crimes considered relatively minor and add to them a Scarlet letter, a public mark of shame that will linger. For a misdemeanor, does that feel just a tad aggressive? It indeed feels like retribution rather than rehabilitation or restoration.

Whether intended or not, this proposal would invoke social isolation and shame upon people who very well might wish the same on those they target. Such a response is understandable, but not productive. Is there some value in striving to do better than those this measure would condemn, to stand behind the goals of restorative justice particularly possible at the misdemeanor level?

It should also not go unnoticed that the associated hope a judge might be swayed toward a maximum county jail sentence is contrary to the recent work to reduce incarceration in Washington County and to find other ways to change people’s lives rather than simply punish.

It may be that advocates for a misdemeanor hate label don’t anticipate the ordinance will be often applied, so they don’t worry much about concerns like ours. It may be they simply want the satisfaction and political benefit of passing an ordinance.

It’s hard to blame advocates who believe there would be a certain satisfaction in clamping the ball-and-chain of “hate” around the ankles of, say, a young offender who spray-painted an awful message on someone else’s property. But isn’t a misdemeanor-level crime a grand opportunity to intervene, to help change that person’s life and attitude? Does the public shaming really feel right in that scenario, even if the misdemeanor they committed exposed reprehensible thinking?

Some will say hate is hate, but is that really true? If a young person uses in a misdemeanor incident a slur he picked up somewhere in his raising, is that the same as a Dylann Roof stepping into a Black church and murdering people because of their skin color? Not at all.

We suggest the concept of hate crimes is best applied in felony cases, while we avoid labeling lesser crimes at the misdemeanor level as hatred.

Amisdemeanor charge can be the start of a life of crime or an opportunity to nip such behaviors in the bud. The city of Fayetteville’s potential labeling of misdemeanants as “haters” is too aggressive, a push to stigmatize people through the least possible level of criminal charge within the judicial system. Maybe that will give some people satisfaction, but is it really an expression of the spirit of Fayetteville?

The city attorney also noted if the city prosecutor failed to prove the hate ordinance add-on, the entire misdemeanor charge “could be lost.” Is that a gamble worth taking?

Wouldn’t Fayetteville be best served by giving participants in low-level crimes room to see the errors of their ways? How many people have grown beyond the stupidity of misdemeanor behaviors into decent people, maybe even experiencing their own self-induced shame for past actions and evolution beyond them?

If the City Council could figure out how to actually reduce or eliminate hatred, it wouldn’t be through an ordinance. It’s just not that simple. And our contention is misdemeanor crimes, more than serious felonies, are of such a nature that they create desirable possibilities for rehabilitation and education.