We've been publishing a series of articles on the general topic of Hate Crimes and Assaults here on the Loper Website. As a part of this series, we are interviewing people with something to share - insight, opinion, even more questions - and will publish these interviews from time to time. The framework for the interviews is a questionnaire, but we will not slavishly force each interview to follow a prescribed format - ideas flow too freely for that.

Dave Sagarin interview with Karen Lilleleht

Do you think we should have Hate Crime laws?

I think the laws are on the books more so that law enforcement can collect statistics than for actual sentencing. I don't think having these laws is going to change anybody's mind - if they're [already] biased against a group.

Do you think there should be an increment in punishment for a Bias Crime?

No. But I do think there could be civil penalties [for these kinds of offenses] - fines, community service … that kind of thing - the bias is not the crime.

Maybe there should be some kind of increment for multiple offenses, to make a distinction, for instance between a one-time thing versus, say, against someone who does this time after time or a group who do it for political reasons.

Do you think we should extend the protected classes to include, say, sexual orientation?

If you're going to have these kinds of laws at all, it seems that sexual orientation should really be included

Recent events in Charlottesville: How would you describe these incidents?
§ Wilding - a bunch of kids acting badly?
§ Town vs. gown
§ Deliberately race-based
§ Something else?

Am I allowed to answer, 'all of the above?' I really think, from what I've read and heard, that it probably is a mixture of all of the above.

Do you think the concept of 'restorative justice' is a good idea?

The more you can do to make them [assailants] realize that the person they victimized is a valuable human being the better off you are - [when they assault someone] they don't see the person, they see … whatever - if it's bias, they see the group.

The accusation has been made that bias-motivated crimes by whites on blacks are publicized and prosecuted more vigorously than such crimes by blacks on whites. Do you think this is true in general? In Charlottesville?

How would we know?

(April 17, 2002)

Karen Lilleleht is a community activist.