Short Take: Then Came The Grievances

That didn’t take long, even if it wasn’t from the expected direction. After questioning whether the systemic reforms announced by the new Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascón, were sustainable, answers swiftly emerged.

LGBTQ voters and others were dumbstruck last week when Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced that, in addition to several other sweeping reforms, he’d be ending sentencing enhancements for criminals, including those found to have committed hate crimes.

‪“People that commit a crime … they are going to face accountability. And that accountability will be proportionate to the crime,” the newly minted DA explained. “Enhancements do not have anything to do with accountability.”

You see where this came from. You see where this is going.

After taking a call with LGBTQ advocates on Thursday, December 17, Gascón amended the directive, saying he would now “allow enhanced sentences in cases involving the most vulnerable victims and in specified extraordinary circumstances. These exceptions shall be narrowly construed.”

So no enhancement, except when sexual orientation and gender identity kicks in? What about hate crime enhancements when there’s a racial component, and the victim is a black person? In one fell swoop, Gascón shifted his position that a crime, punishable in itself because its conduct violates the law, is now subject to enhancements based on identity politics. If it’s a favored identity, we’re back to tacking on punishment for conduct plus thought crime. If not, then it’s just your run of the mill murder.

Does it matter that Gascón’s shift only applies to “the most vulnerable victims”? Like who, grandmas who can’t defend themselves? Is there anything particularly vulnerable about one’s race or gender identity? Can’t a transgender person pack as good a punch as a straight person? Can a poor person run as fast as a rich person?

“Since hate violence has a unique serious impact on the community, it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge that this form of criminal conduct merits more substantial punishment,” wrote Jeffrey I. Abrams, Regional Director, ADL Los Angeles. “Bias crimes are intended to intimidate the victim and members of the victim’s community, leaving them feeling fearful, isolated, and vulnerable. Failure to address this unique type of crime often causes an isolated incident to explode into widespread community tension. The damage done by hate crimes, therefore, cannot be measured solely in terms of physical injury or dollars and cents. By making members of targeted communities fearful, angry, and suspicious of other groups—and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them— these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities.”

Lots of words, but does the argument mean anything beyond  wanting anyone committing a crime against one’s special identity group to suffer extra-harsh punishment? This is repackaged carceral rhetoric, as if fear of crime doesn’t leave the community feeling fearful.

No one wants to be the victim of a crime. But this isn’t about making assault or murder not a crime, but making it an enhanced crime because they want special punishment for special identities. Is that what is meant by reform, or is it just reform for those favored and harsher punishment for those who aren’t?

18 thoughts on “Short Take: Then Came The Grievances

  1. Christopher T. Van Wagner

    “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” – Bob Dylan, 1965.

    “I mean what I say unless I say otherwise.” – LA DA George Gascon, 2020.

    “I got plenty of numbers left.” – Chico Marx, 1929, in “Cocoanuts”.

    1. orthodoc

      I thought the Marx Bro. quote apt for the George Gascón flip-flop was Groucho’s: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”

  2. Elpey P.

    Hopefully they’re working out whether intersectionality and disparate impact means that some offenders should be exempt or that hate crime enhancements are another form of white supremacy.

    1. Rengit

      They don’t even need to make this official policy: if the accused is a member of a disfavored group, and his crime involved members of a favored group, activists speculate that it was a hate crime, will comb through his social media posts, call up ex-girlfriends who knew him, demand that the DA investigate the incident as a hate crime: subpoenas to social media providers and phone companies to see if he ever said anything that could infer bias. We have to make sure this isn’t hate, communities are scared. The victim of the robbery was in a wheelchair, and the DA gets texts showing he used the “R****d” word five years ago in a couple conversations with friends? He was biased against handicapped people, it must have been a motivating factor, hate crime enhancement.

      A member of the LGBT community serially vandalizes businesses and even homes with graffiti, stickers, and carvings, with messages promoting “Down with Cisheteronormativity”, “Straightness is violence”, “Cis people suck”, but conspicuously avoids businesses with rainbow flags in the window? Nothing to see here, just a person who is a little too engaged in their activism, vandalism is just something you have to expect living in a big city. Not appropriate for a hate crime, just a misdemeanor and $300 fine, we have no evidence that this person specifically targeted these places because of motivations re: sexual orientation.

  3. Charles

    It’s one thing to take the time to evaluate a law or policy, examine a multiplicity of viewpoints, formulate a plan, and then implement it.

    It’s a whole other thing to implement “sweeping reforms,” take a phone call, and then immediately change your mind about those reforms.

    Our principles seem no more lasting than a social media post. “Felt principled. Might change later.”

  4. Dan J

    >“Since hate violence has a unique serious impact on the community, it is entirely appropriate to acknowledge that this form of criminal conduct merits more substantial punishment,”

    Weird, I would think that being murdered for your sneakers also has a pretty serious impact on the community (and the victim) and it is appropriate to punish that more harshly.

  5. Steve King

    Your last sentence is the answer.

    In the case of a death penalty crime with a hate crime specification, are you going to execute the criminal twice?

  6. Pedantic Grammar Police

    A recent headline gives me hope that marginalized burglars and other petty criminals will take notice, and show their gratitude by exercising their protected status on the politicians responsible for this nonsense.

    “Seattle councilwoman who cut police budget called 911 to protect her from crime she wants to decriminalize”

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