Q: You had an article in the paper about a drop in hate crimes. Georgia does not have any hate crime law. Can you kindly define what a hate crime is and what the federal hate crime is?
—John Grady, Lawrenceville
A: A hate crime is defined as "a traditional offense like murder, arson or vandalism with an added element of bias," according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation website.
When categorizing crimes, the FBI defines hate crimes as those criminal offenses “against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.”
Georgia enacted a state hate crimes law in 2000, but it was unanimously struck down in 2004 by the Georgia Supreme Court for being too broad, according to media reports at the time.
“The high court said that it ‘by no means’ condones the ‘savage attack … or any conduct motivated by a bigoted or hate-filled point of view.’ But it said the law was ‘unconstitutionally vague’ and so broad that it could be applied to every possible prejudice,” The Washington Post reported.
The FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics show 39 hate crimes were reported in Georgia in 2016, down five from 2015.
Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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