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Posts published in “Day: July 10, 2022”

The hate crime narrative

July 10, 2022

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Where do hate crimes come from?

From mass shootings to those of smaller scope, more understanding of the dynamics behind them can be a critical element to coping with them.

A new tool launched by the Oregon Legislature three years ago may help provide some of that insight – if it is put to its most effective use.

The 2019 Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 577, which restructured how the state approaches the crimes, renaming the crime of “intimidation” as a “bias crime.” The bill analysis said it “proposes to shift the focus toward the nature of the harm and use and threat of violence in addition to the motives behind the crime of violence.”

More concretely, it required the state Department of Justice to set up the Bias Response Hotline, a staffed phone number “any victim of a bias or a hate incident can call … to report an incident, connect with trained staff and receive a referral to law enforcement, if appropriate.” The hotline now is in its third year.

The law also required an annual report from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission reviewing bias (or hate) crimes, drawing on information from various local, state and federal sources and also from the hotline. The third annual report was released in late June.

It provided useful information. It could be more useful.

There’s plenty of raw data here. A summary said, “Reports to the Hotline increased by 53% between 2020 and 2021, from 1,101 to 1,683. Bias crimes accounted for 28% of reports in both years. Anti-Asian incidents increased by almost 200% overall, and anti-Asian bias crimes increased by 300%. Bias incidents in schools increased by 300% in this period, from 36 to 157 reports. There was also a 300% increase in bias incidents targeting Hotline advocates between 2020 and 2021, which has continued into 2022.”

On the surface, this suggests hate crimes have been growing rapidly in the last couple of years, which is possible. The numbers also could reflect that the case pipeline from law enforcement and other sources through to the hotline is getting better, not necessarily that the number of crimes is increasing. But it may also suggest the efficacy of the hotline may be growing for understanding the dynamic of what is happening and why.

The hotline information has some other limitations. People who call in are self-selecting, among people who happen to know about the service or are specially motivated to call.

The information isn’t immediately cross-checked unless it is referred to law enforcement or another entity. The hotline’s website advises: “The advocate will listen, and you can share as much or as little information about the bias you experienced or witnessed; it’s your choice. You do not have to share information like your name, your location, or your protected class information, but the advocate may ask you if it helps us respond better to you on the hotline or to connect you with some potential resources and/or support options in your community.”

The hotline’s formal stance toward callers is to believe them – useful from the standpoint of providing assistance and encouragement to victims, though maybe less so as a matter of dispassionate analysis.

The hotline may be highly useful in another way: understanding the dynamics of what is happening, and how, in the cases of hate crime incidents.

This year’s annual report also, for example, included this:

“Unlike typical violent crimes that tend to be committed by solitary defendants, bias crimes are commonly perpetrated by multiple defendants – who are unlikely to engage in similar acts in a solitary setting where diffusion of responsibility and social acceptance of their aggressive behavior is not possible – or by a solitary defendant in a situation where they believe others support their beliefs. Rather than being acts perpetrated by individuals due to a disdain of differences, bias acts are influenced by defendants’ real and perceived access to resources in that specific situation, the location of the event, the presence of real and perceived sympathetic witnesses/collaborators to reduce stigma of the act and a target who is vulnerable in that situation. Accordingly, vulnerability is situational and victimization patterns will change as groups’ relative access to social, political and economic resources shifts.”

That kind of information – and that paragraph wasn’t all the report contained – provides a lever into understanding how these crimes occur, and maybe suggest ways of heading them off.

Some of this is new and not inherently obvious; it could – if developed more expansively and in detail – provide the kind of insight that would help pushing back against hate crimes.

This column originally appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

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How tough on guns?

July 10, 2022

 

From a July 4 column on the Oregon Capital Chronicle by Tim Nesbitt.

Oregon’s latest citizen-led effort to keep guns out of dangerous hands has become a go-to campaign in the wake of the rapid-fire slaughters of innocents in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Hundreds of Oregonians have reportedly taken to the streets with clipboards in hand to qualify Initiative Petition 17, titled the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, for the November ballot.

If this signature gathering effort succeeds, it will be due to an impressive volunteer effort rarely seen in initiative campaigns in recent decades – and one that will shift the debate over gun safety in an ambitious, new direction in Oregon. Instead of focusing on marginal reforms to reduce gun violence, such as setting 21 as the minimum age for purchasing firearms, IP 17 proposes a systemic approach that would require individuals to secure government-issued permits to purchase or acquire guns in the future.

But questions abound. Is this a bridge too far for most Oregonians? And, even if the voters decide to cross this bridge, how will the measure fare in judicial territory made more hostile to such reforms by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Bruen decision?

Until now, even modest limitations on access to guns, such as Oregon’s red flag law, have been hard won in the state Legislature. This despite polls that show majority support for toughening gun laws among Oregonians.

A recent survey by the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, conducted just weeks after the Uvalde school shooting, found that a majority of Oregonians thinks that “gun laws should be more strict than they are today” at the national level (59%) and here in Oregon (56%). These generic findings are similar to those that the Pew Center reports for Americans nationwide.

So, perhaps it’s not surprising that Oregon’s gun control regime places us in the middle of the pack – not as tough as many blue states, but not as extreme as many red states that have removed restrictions on the open and concealed carry of firearms.

But is there now an opening for more gun controls in Oregon? Almost certainly yes, over time and step by step. But probably not via a single, expansive ballot measure. It’s hard to prevail in a contested campaign when just 56% of the people are on your side to begin with and vary widely in their opinions about what constitutes reasonable reforms.

Still, I think the best case for supporters of IP 17 is to point out that it is a logical extension of background checks. If background checks make sense to keep guns out of dangerous hands, then why not let one background check serve to authorize gun purchases for up to five years at a time for individuals who pass muster in the first instance. That initial authorization then becomes a permit for future purchases.

Yes, but the criteria for the permits proposed in IP 17 are more elaborate – photo IDs, completion of approved gun safety training and longer waiting periods. All of these make sense to me as a gun owner, but I’m not sure they’d make the list of “common sense solutions” for most Oregonians.

Programs like these are on the books in a dozen states, including the century-old New York law that was just upended by the U.S. Supreme Court. But most of these laws were enacted in earlier, in less polarized times and in states with electorates more open to the regulation of guns. So, I’m worried that the surge of support for IP 17 in Oregon will prove to be more wishful than wise.

On the legal front, we can expect that the recent Supreme Court decision will be exploited by the measure’s opponents. But that decision may not affect IP 17, which proposes a framework for issuing permits that is less subjective than what the court found objectionable in the New York case. The post-Bruen landscape is not as difficult to navigate for reformers as many first feared. Also, just to be safe, IP 17 provides that if any of its many provisions are invalidated in the courts, its other provisions shall remain in effect.

Among those other provisions is a separate section that bans the sale of high-capacity magazines. This is a reform that appears closer to what most who favor tougher gun laws would call a “common sense solution.” But its fate is tied to the measure’s more expansive permitting system.

The Reduction of Gun Violence Act is compelling in its title but may be too ambitious in its scope. Its goals are laudable, but its passage is far from certain. And the crosscurrents it creates in partisan elections for the Legislature and the governor may further polarize the electorate on this issue in November.

A template

July 10, 2022

The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) has already shown us how to drive a storied community college to the brink of ruin. IFF board chair Brent Regan and his wrecking crew have just about finished off North Idaho College (NIC). Now IFF is demonstrating its plan to discredit and dismantle Idaho’s public schools, starting with West Bonner County School District (WBCSD) centered in Priest River.

IFF helped to get far-right candidates Keith Rutledge and Susan Brown elected to the school board in November of 2021, making a three-trustee majority that has been creating havoc ever since. The majority refused to support a $4.7 million two-year levy that was intended to cover about a third of WBCSD’s annual operating budget. Thanks to a good deal of misinformation leading up to the May 15 vote, the levy failed by just over 100 votes, putting the district in an extreme financial bind. The blame for the failure falls upon the IFF-supported majority.

Now, the board majority has voted to install an unqualified IFF employee as superintendent of WBCSD. After a three-ring circus of missteps, the majority voted on June 28 to hire Branden Durst, a problematic person to say the least, as the person in charge of running the district. Judging from his track record, he certainly is capable of running the school district into the ground. That would be in keeping with the IFF’s avowed goal of getting the government out of the business of educating our children.

The tragedy is that the interim superintendent, Susan Luckey, a 2018 Distinguished National Principal who has spent nearly four decades in the district as a teacher and principal, was readily available for the position. Many long-time residents of Priest River were greatly distressed about the hiring debacle, pointing to the IFF’s track record of fighting against adequate funding for public schools. WBCSD patron Nicole Gunning-Butler expressed fears of IFF’s, “relentless attempts to dismantle rural school districts and advance their extreme political and religious agenda.” She and her husband, who graduated from Priest River High School and served in the U.S. Navy, have two children attending schools in the district.

School district patrons are concerned about the appearance of backroom dealing by the board majority in arriving at the hiring decision. The Idaho Education News has highlighted what appear to be violations of Idaho’s Open Meeting Law by the IFF-supported board, as well as the board’s refusal to respond to public record requests.

WBCSD patrons are not taking these shenanigans lying down, however. Rather, they are showing that concerned citizens around the state can fight back against those who would subvert our public school system. Local folks got busy organizing petition drives to recall Rutledge and Brown. They turned in their petitions at the end of June with more than enough signatures to recall both of the troublesome trustees. They gathered 337 signatures to recall Rutledge, although only 243 were necessary to schedule an election. Brown received 243 recall signatures, while only 180 were needed. If the two do not voluntarily step down, an election will be held on August 29.

Durst does not have the credentials to serve as superintendent and must receive provisional certification from the Idaho Board of Education in order to act in that role.

That is where the rest of us can lend a hand in order to protect WBCSD from further disaster. Idahoans concerned about persons hostile to public schools being given important education positions should make their concerns known to members of the Idaho Board of Education, as well as Governor Brad Little. If the board majority tries to keep Durst without the certification, a patron lawsuit could send him packing.

The IFF is trying to commandeer other rural school district boards across the state. The WBCSD experience shows that IFF can fail, but it depends upon concerned citizens rising up to protect their schools.