Hate, Violence, and Death on Main Street USA - National Coalition ...

HATE, VIOLENCE, AND DEATH ON MAIN STREET USA2008group characteristic of a potential victim. In other instances, laws focused less on the right a victimwas exercising, but instead on his or her group status characteristic. It is noteworthy to thecontemporary discussion of homeless status to recognize that housing <strong>and</strong> the use of thoroughfareshas been a longst<strong>and</strong>ing protected civil right.While a small number of older state statutes resembled the federal models, modern state statutestended to be broader in their application. These laws include protection on the basis of a victim’sreal or perceived group status. Structurally, hate crime laws are of two main types, those thatenhance the penalty for underlying offenses, <strong>and</strong> those that can be charged independently withoutthe necessity of levying another charge. In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993), the UnitedStates Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of properly drafted hate crimepenalty enhancement laws. In the case, Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), the Courtruled that in most instances discriminatory victim selection must be established beyond a reasonabledoubt.Invisible <strong>Hate</strong> Crimes: The Homeless PeoplePerhaps the greatest tragedy of homelessness is the astronomical level <strong>and</strong> frequency of violentattack that these individuals face. Studies from the United States <strong>and</strong> Canada indicate that homelessindividuals face an annual risk of criminal victimization as high as 66% to 82%, about the highestfor any subgroup in the industrialized world. Some of the victimizations against homeless peoplerelate to their actual physical lack of shelter, their location in higher crime areas, disability, as wellas risks associated with relationships <strong>and</strong> activities that occur on the street.However, over the last ten years a clear <strong>and</strong> alarming pattern has emerged that show the homelesspopulation face an additional risk of extreme violence. Unprovoked targeted attacks bypredominantly domiciled young males assailants that do not involve robbery, personal disputes, ordrug dealing have claimed the lives of over 200 men <strong>and</strong> women nationally over the past decade.Methods include blunt force trauma, shootings, maiming, drowning, stabbings, <strong>and</strong> the burning ofvictims alive. Some of these individual cases <strong>and</strong> sporadic media coverage have brought theproblem of bias-related violence against homeless people to the attention of legislators. However,an important partnership between advocacy groups such as National Coalition for the Homeless(NCH) <strong>and</strong> researchers has shed additional light on the severe extent of the problem. Our Center inconjunction with NCH has found that there were twice as many homeless people killed in apparentbias related attacks than the combined total of every other hate crime category reported by the FBIin the last decade. This anti-homeless data actually excludes some of the other deadly violence thathomeless people experience because attacks involving drugs, personal disputes, robbery, insurancefraud <strong>and</strong> homeless on homeless violence are not tabulated. While there have been many more nonhomicideattacks, including rapes <strong>and</strong> aggravated assaults, the homicide data, which also representsa probable undercount, is considered the most reliable of all offense data.Class-based violent prejudice against homeless people has become so entrenched in youth culturethat it spawned a series of popular mass marketed videos, internet web pages, amateur youtubevideos <strong>and</strong> its own sport label: “bum hunting.” Moreover, class-based anti-homeless prejudice isfrequently overlaid on top of other prejudices such as race, gender, homophobia, <strong>and</strong> mental illness36