Search
It isn’t easy getting seven high ranking officials of the California Department of Justice to sit and listen attentively for two hours to a long list of action requests, ask intelligent questions and then generally agree with what they are being asked to do.
But this is exactly what we accomplished last week.
We coordinate a coalition of most of the state’s major civil rights groups concerned about the plague of hate crimes. Our particular concern is anti-disability hate crimes, which have justifiably been called “the invisible hate crimes.” Our leadership role in the civil rights coalition assures this category of hate crime is never left out of any actions.
Newly re-elected Attorney General Xavier Becerra, on Thursday, sent officials from every relevant DOJ division to meet with the coalition, report on their actions since the last meeting a year ago, and listen and respond to our long list of asks for further actions.
Since the last meeting, the State Auditor released the results of the performance audit of law enforcement agencies’ response to hate crimes ¬– an audit Assembly member Kansen Chu initiated at the coalition’s request. The audit found that law enforcement’s actions have been, frankly, inadequate, and recommended specific corrective steps that some agencies and DOJ are carrying out now.
Our message last week was that if we learned anything from the audit, it is that merely passing laws isn’t enough. It really all depends on the law enforcement agencies charged with carrying out the laws. To assure they do so correctly, we asked the Attorney General to partner with us and do two things: (1) offer the law enforcement agencies all the assistance they may need, including helping to assure that the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (whose top officials were also present) provides agencies with good hate crimes training guidelines and a strong model policy on hate crimes, including mandatory training of all officers; (2) use his authority to hold them accountable. We had a long list of specifics, which his staff received favorably.
The coalition also asked Mr. Becerra to joint us – actually, lead us – in speaking out publicly against hate crimes, including anti-disability hate crimes.
The DOJ people agreed to be in contact with our coalition regularly.
Stay tuned for news on the major disability and senior groups’ important asks on combatting abuse of people with disabilities and elders.
Greg DeGiere, Civil Rights Coordinator, The Arc of California