Somebody let California Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-San Fernando Valley) know that the current criminal justice reform trend is supposed to be about helping released criminals who have served their time and done their penance re-establish stable lives in their community and get jobs. We’re not supposed to be finding ways to make their lives even worse.
Bocanegra is engaging in a round of post-Donald-Trump-election legislation as social signaling that is bound to make life harder for a small class of criminals. On the basis of the reported increase in hate crimes in California (which the legislator attributes to Trump’s election) Bocanegra is attempting to create a new crime registry. He wants to make a database for people to look up anybody who has been convicted of a hate crime. He declares:
The Hate Crime Registry will be an important public safety tool to better protect individuals and communities from hate crimes, help reverse this deeply troubling trend, and significantly reduce hate crimes in California. In the coming months, I will work diligently to bring together Democrats and Republicans, law enforcement and victims’ rights groups, to take immediate steps send a clear message to perpetrators that violence rooted in bigotry and bias will not be tolerated in California.
He has introduced AB 39, which has no actual content as yet. It’s just an announcement of an intent to pass further legislation to establish this registry.
On what basis is Bocanegra claiming that such a registry would protect individuals from hate crimes? He provides no data on hate crime repeat offenders. Are there any? A quick check of the state’s numbers on hate crime convictions shows 119 total convictions for 2015. The most annual convictions they’ve listed for hate crimes in recent years was in 2009: 223 of them. The population of California is approaching 40 million.
Via Reason