The David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 () or David's Law, was a bill first introduced in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

on January 7, 2009, by Rep.

Sheila Jackson-Lee Sheila Jackson Lee ( Jackson; January 12, 1950 – July 19, 2024) was an American lawyer and politician who was the U.S. representative for , from 1995 until her death in 2024. The district includes most of central Houston. She was a member of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. It was designed to enhance Federal enforcement of laws regarding

hate crime Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...

s, and to specifically make

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...

, like race and gender, a

protected class A protected group, protected class (US), or prohibited ground (Canada) is a category by which people are qualified for special protection by a law, policy, or similar authority. In Canada and the United States, the term is frequently used in co ...

. The bill stated that existing Federal law was inadequate to address violence motivated by race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or disability of the victim. It called for the revision of Section 246* of title 18 of the United States Code as well as the addition of a subsection outlining the punishment for anyone found guilty of a hate crime. Statistics show that minority groups are the main victims of hate crimes. Crimes against gay men and lesbians are said, by researches in Los Angeles County, to be the most severe form of hate crimes. In summary, the bill's intention was to make illegal the willful harm or attempt to harm a person based on their actual or perceived gender or sexual orientation.

Legal hate crime history

State legislators began to introduce hate crime laws starting in the 1970s to address racism, prejudice, and discrimination that escalated into more violent crimes. The first state law against hate crimes, titled California Section 190.2 was passed in 1978 in California. This statute's sole purpose was the enhance the penalty of crimes that were motivated by prejudice due to race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, etc. In California, there was an increase in crimes committed against Asians based on their race, religion, and ethnicity based on a survey conducted by a spokesperson of the National LGBTQ Task Force. Research studies conducted by George Comstock in 1991, proved that there was a rise in hate crimes as of 1985 at the same time that policies against hate crimes were being created. In 1990, President George Bush signed the Hate Crime Statistics Act which allowed analysis of hate crimes that occur across the country. However, hate crimes are often not reported which makes it virtually impossible to gather statistics and compare these statistics with other statistics. Hate crimes and bias crimes started to receive the attention of policymakers, community activists, and social scientists after there was a rise of hate crimes across the country committed in 1985. Hate crime convictions do not occur frequently because when crimes investigations occur, motives are tough to figure out in the eyes of the law. Research is currently being conducted to investigate the effectiveness of hate crime legislation by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.

References

External links

Text of the bill
*Under bill C-51 present of January 12 it will be 245 *Study on hate crime legislation effectiveness https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/210300.pdf *Summary of bill https://projects.propublica.org/represent/bills/114/hr41 *http://reconstructasurvivor.org/Congresswoman%20SJL_bio.html Proposed legislation of the 110th United States Congress LGBTQ rights in the United States United States federal criminal legislation United States federal legislation articles needing infoboxes {{US-fed-statute-stub