From: Rosslyn King and Felipe N. Martinez, Not In Columbus Co-Facilitators
Columbus
The State of Indiana is only one of five states in the nation that does not yet have a hate crimes bill, and the members of the Not In Columbus coalition urge all candidates running for state office this fall to make a public pledge to support passage of such legislation if elected.
Some local candidates are making a disingenuous argument that Indiana already has the language of a hate crimes law in the books, but that is inaccurate. They reference IC 10-13-3-1, hoping voters won’t look up the reference. In that statute the term “bias crime” is merely defined and is located in the article entitled “State Police Data and Information Programs.” The only other time “bias crime” is found comes in IC 10-13-3-38 “Collection of bias crime information; reports.” Neither instance is a substitute for actual hate crimes legislation, which would finally give judges the ability to use the bias in a crime as an aggravating factor in sentencing criminals. That was what last year’s Senate Bill 418 proposed, but it was not voted into law.
A hate crimes law would not create new crimes. It simply would give judges the ability to stiffen sentencing for crimes committed if “the person committed the offense, including an offense involving an individual’s property, with the intent to harm or intimidate an individual because of the individual’s perceived or actual: race; religion; color; sex; gender identity; disability; national origin; ancestry; sexual orientation; or ethnicity; whether or not the person’s belief or perception was correct.” (This was the proposed language for IC 35-38-1-7.1 in last year’s Senate Bill 418 impacting a judge’s ability to sentence criminals).
If people are targeted for crime simply because of who they are, the State of Indiana must be able to take that into account when punishing the criminals.
Not In Columbus is a coalition of organizations in Columbus that reject publicly the ideology of any group that seeks to divide and exclude any members of our community. We believe Columbus is an inclusive community that values diversity in all its forms, therefore we renounce all forms of hate in our city.
