Diocese Supports Victim Selection Bill

Friday, Feb. 03, 2017

When a crime is committed against a person, the victim often wonders why he or she was selected, asking, “What did I do to draw the attention of the perpetrator?” While we know better than to blame victims for criminal acts committed against them, for many years legislators have refused to recognize that sometimes a victim truly is selected for reasons that have nothing to do with the individual, but everything to do with what that person represents to the victimizer.

We have seen this most profoundly in the past year as police officers were the specifically chosen victims of bad actors. The officers ambushed across the nation were not selected because they personally had caused harm, but because they were officers. Public outrage at such random acts of violence against individuals solely because they were wearing uniforms was swift and understandable. Utah law already provides a penalty enhancement for crimes targeting officers.

But law enforcement are not the only victims specifically chosen based on someone else’s perception of their worth as members of a group. Swastikas painted on Jewish homes, fire bombings of mosques, burning crosses on the lawns of black families are all examples of crimes targeting specific victims based on nothing more than that they are known to be members of specific religious or racial categories.

Despite our shared humanity, we all forget at times that each of us is created equal. We are all guilty of adopting attitudes of rejection and exclusion and consenting to acts of discrimination on the basis of racial, ethnic, religious or other differences. When those attitudes lead to criminal acts, however, we need to do something to repair the wounds, including the wounds intentionally inflicted on an entire group of individuals based on a deep-seated prejudice. 

As the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states, “the roots of human rights are to be found in the dignity that belongs to each human being.” When that dignity is denied not just to one person but to the religion, race or gender that he or she represents, society is best served by providing the opportunity for the perpetrator to make amends and overcome the underlying motivations that led them to act in a criminal manner.

We recognize this throughout our criminal justice system. Drug addicts who commit robberies are locked away as punishment for the theft, but also receive, or should receive, drug treatment to help keep them from committing the same or other crimes after release. The purpose of our correctional institutions, as the name implies, is to correct behavior and repair harm. We know we cannot correct the drug addict’s outward behavior of theft without correcting his addiction.

The same is true in crimes motivated by racial, religious or other clear bias. A person may be an ardent supporter of a white supremacist group, yet never commit a crime against a racial minority. But if that person does target a minority with the clear intent to harm the person because she is a minority, we will fail at our goal of correction or rehabilitation if we do not address the racism that led to the criminal act.

This is what SB 72 Victim Selection Penalty Enhancements, and its companion S.J.R. 4 Joint Resolution Amending Rules of Evidence-Victim Selection, seeks to do. The bill would give prosecutors the opportunity to not only punish the criminal act, but also to ensure that any penalty recognizes that we cannot correct the wrongful behaviors of discrimination if we do not acknowledge when bias and prejudice are the predominant justification for a criminal act.

The bill and resolution enhance the penalty for crimes that involve outward expressions of animus toward a victim based on that victim’s perceived race, nationality, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation. 

The Diocese of Salt Lake City is supportive of SB 72 and S.J.R. 4. We urge Catholics to let their legislators know that we believe in protecting the rights of all Utahns by protecting the dignity of all Utahns.  

Jean Hill is the government liaison for the Diocese of Salt Lake City.