About the Foundation
Sean’s Last Wish Foundation wants to raise awareness to the fact that in the State of South Carolina, law enforcement officials do not have the tools in which to investigate crimes of violence and intimidation that are motivated by bias against actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim.
These types of laws are generally referred to as hate crimes laws and are a type of penalty enhancement law which provides sentencing guidelines for perpetrators convicted of such crimes.
South Carolina does, however, have penalty enhancement laws that protect law enforcement personnel, school officials, state officials, churches, as well as animals (horses, mules, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, cats and dogs).
Current laws do not protect against bias motivated crimes based on actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of the victim.
South Carolina needs to have all inclusive laws which protect everyone from bias motivated crimes.
These laws will give law enforcement officials the tools to deter violence which make society safer as a whole. Allowing the criminal justice system to address hate-specific violence will chip away at a culture of intolerance.
This is why we need to have all inclusive hate crimes laws in South Carolina! All inclusive penalty enhancement laws would prevent plea bargaining and prevent perpetrators from being paroled when they inflict bodily harm or cause death to any human being due to acts of bias motivated violence.
It simply can no longer be tolerated that people can attack and even kill others with the possibility of walking away with no jail time!
Sean has always talked about and supported that every human being should be treated equally and have the same rights under the law regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.
His last wish would be to have this changed!
Let’s stand together and get this changed!
Donations
If you would like to make a donation to the Sean’s Last Wish Foundation, please send it to the following address:
Sean’s Last Wish
CPM Federal Credit Union
P.O. Box 2297
Greer, SC 29652