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Governor Ned Lamont today announced that the package of legislative proposals he will ask the Connecticut General Assembly to ratify during the 2025 regular session will include a bill consolidating and strengthening the state’s existing hate crime statutes in order to increase the ability of police and prosecutors to charge criminals with these crimes and seek enhanced penalties.
Connecticut’s hate crimes statutes originate to 1990 when the legislature established a single crime of intimidation based on bigotry or bias. Since then, the legislature modified that law on several occasions and created numerous other statutes addressing the prosecution of hate crimes and expanding the list of protected classes.
The legislation the governor is proposing, which originates from the work of the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council, consolidates all of the state’s existing hate crimes laws into a new hate crimes chapter of the Connecticut General Statutes, which will simplify and make it easier for police and prosecutors to charge and prosecute criminals with these crimes. It also modifies the intent standard to align more closely with the hate crimes laws used in other states by removing the element that a defendant must have acted “maliciously.”
“Connecticut has led the nation in the adoption of hate crimes laws, and that is a good thing, but in order for them to be effective and for police and prosecutors to be able to use them, these laws need to be streamlined within our statutes,” Governor Lamont said. “Hate crimes are intended to induce fear and terrorize entire groups of people, and that is why the prosecution of crimes involving acts of hate must include enhanced penalties.”
The Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council is an advisory body consisting of volunteers appointed by the governor who represent a wide range of community and civic groups (e.g., NAACP, Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut, ACLU, Middletown Racial Justice Coalition, ADL Connecticut).
“Over the last couple of years, the Connecticut Hate Crimes Advisory Council has been conducting valuable research on the prevalence of hate crimes in the state, and specifically looking into how frequently these crimes get reported to law enforcement and then appropriately prosecuted,” Governor Lamont said. “The council’s research into this topic is going to help us make Connecticut’s hate crimes laws more effective.”
The following is a list of existing hate crimes laws in the Connecticut General Statutes that Governor Lamont is seeking to consolidate into one new chapter:
People can report a hate crime or bias incident to the Hate Crimes Advisory Council by clicking here: Reporthate.ct.gov.
The reporting form asks for the location of the incident, what type of "bias motivation" was involved, what "type" of incident happened (e.g., hate speech, verbal assault, written or online harassment), when the incident happened, and the relationship of the person making the report to the victim.
