In 20 years in the Family Courts, I have seen a lot. I have seen juveniles prosecuted for crimes of all sorts. But today was the first time I had ever heard of a juvenile being prosecuted for committing a hate crime - against a disabled person. The article reporting the arrests can be found here.
Generally, we associate hate crimes being committed on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, or perhaps even religious or ethnic reasons. The historical imperative behind the laws which give greater protections to minorities was obvious. And even today, the need for these laws is patently obvious to dissaude, in the strongest possible terms, people from singling out minorities and committing violent acts against them.
One may (and some have) questioned why an African American victim, for example, should be entitled to greater protection than any other victim. The answer, if not entirely satisfying to everyone, was at least logically palatable given the historical context of black civil rights violations and the like.
But one wonders whether the same can be said of crimes against the disabled. Certainly, it cannot be disputed that disabled people are disadvantaged and less able to protect themselves. But is that a reason to grant crimes against them a different status than those against the non-disabled? In other words, what is the historical wrong that this otherwise curative law is intending to correct? Put another way, it is unclear, to me at any rate, that this country has a history of hating disabled people that is in urgent need of correction. And in the absence of that history, what is the logical or moral basis for subjecting juveniles, or anyone else for that matter, to harsher penalties for crimes committed against them?
Either way, this case bears watching. Should the prosecution succeed, it may open the hate crime statutes to all manner of classes and expose juveniles and adults alike to far harsher penalties.
