Callahan & Blaine

A bill that would make it a hate crime to attack a homeless person in California has been shelved for this legislative session, but the South Bay lawmaker, Mike Gipson, who authored the measure vows not to let it die.

Assembly Bill 1422 stalled in the lower house’s Public Safety Committee last week, but Gipson said he would reintroduce it next year

Under California law, a hate crime is defined as a criminal act committed against someone because of his or her actual or perceived characteristics, including race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disabilities. A hate crime can be charged as a stand-alone crime or as an enhancement that can add more time on to a defendant’s sentence.

Opponents to the bill have argued that hate crime laws are tailored after the personal characteristics of victims — race or ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

“Homelessness, by contrast, is a status and a challenge that society needs to solve. Notably, unlike the existing categories, it is not a core or immutable personal trait, and an individual’s homelessness status should indeed be changed,” said Nancy J. Appel, the Anti-Defamation League’s California legislative director, in a letter to the Public Safety Committee. “As such, crimes against homeless individuals are not what hate crime laws were designed to address.”

Criminal law professor at Cal State San Bernardino, Brian Levin, spoke at the hearing in support of Gipson’s proposed bill saying, “Every group that is targeted in a hate crime has some vulnerability, but the homeless have a heightened vulnerability.”

In a letter to Gipson dated April 18, Levin said the homeless face a rate of victimization that far exceeds that of other groups. In the past two decades, a “clear and disturbing pattern has emerged that show the homeless population face an additional risk of violence.”

Further debate has been halted until at least next year when Gipson has stated that he intends to continue moving forward with the proposed legislation.

“We’re not going to give up the fight to raise our voice on this issue. (The homeless) should be a protected class. Homeless people deserve protection, and we need to give it to them,” he stated to the press.