New York –
Every day, members of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs work to eliminate hate motivated violence from the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. LGBT communities are continually reminded of their inability to simply exist in safety. The open and virulent hostility that pervades our lives impacts us on a multitude of levels and must be addressed. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA) which was recently reintroduced into the House of Representatives is a significant step forward in our long struggle to ensure the safety of LGBT people across the nation.
NCAVP extends its support for this bill and its heartfelt appreciation to US Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Mark Kirk (D-Ill.) for their support as chief sponsors of this bill. The LLEHCPA will allow the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute anti-LGBT bias motivated violence. Importantly, the bill also eliminates the current restriction that victims of hate motivated violence must be engaged in a federally protected act such as voting.
Through a long history of addressing hate motivated violence, NCAVP is clear that local communities should have as many resources as possible available to them in combating bias-motivated violence. Accurately identifying and naming an incident as hate or bias-motivated is tremendously important for both victim and community healing and is also a crucial step in prevention. It can be very challenging for communities to do this because hate violence against LGBT people can be disguised as a random act of violence or other crime. Giving law enforcement the necessary tools and support to help them more accurately and sensitively address these acts of violence is critical. Furthermore, LGBT people of color, people of trans experience, and homeless LGBT people, are often more frequently targets for violence because offenders believe that there actions against these communities will be condoned by society and by government. It is our hope that passage of this Act will send a message to the contrary.
NCAVP also recognizes that hate violence against our communities is the most extreme consequence of societal oppression and inequality. Thus, hate violence prevention must extend beyond criminal/legal systems response. To this end, NCAVP does not support enhanced penalties legislation as they have not been shown to be preventative and have been shown to negatively impact the very communities they are intended to protect. Beyond working in communities to end violence against LGBT people, NCAVP supports legislation that mandates law enforcement training, restorative justice, initiatives, and mandated documenting and tracking of hate crimes. NCAVP encourages the passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2007.
NCAVP's Report
on Anti-LGBT Violence in 2005 is available here
.
###
