Senators discuss tougher penalties for assaults on hospital workers

A proposal to increase penalties for people who assault health care workers provoked opposition Tuesday in the Legislature from senators who said it would be ineffective.

Nebraska already has heightened penalties for assaulting licensed health care professionals. The proposals debated Tuesday would extend that to everyone who works in a hospital, and to pharmacists as well.

Sen. Beau Ballard said people in health care are common targets.

“While healthcare workers make up 10% of the workforce, they experience 48% of the non-fatal injuries due to workplace violence," he said. "Workplace violence impacts both mental health, physical well- being. Healthcare workers who experience workplace violence may also experience suicidal and post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and burnout."

Ballard urged his colleagues to extend current legal protections beyond licensed professionals.

“Do we value a doctor over a medical assistant, a nurse over security officer?" he asked. "All on the front line, providing care to ensure that communities are cared for, all healthcare workers deserve to feel safe at work. They're dedicated themselves to caring for others, and we have opportunity to stand with those health care workers."

Sen. Wendy DeBoer led a filibuster against the bill. DeBoer said she shares the goal of keeping people safe.

“All people in this state, all people deserve to be safe," she said. "This filibuster is not about any one individual or saying that any one individual does not deserve to be safe in their workplace. This filibuster is about all of us. It's about saying that we need to develop the best system so that all of us can be safe."

Sen. John Cavanaugh, also opposing the bill, said it would not work.

“We should do everything we can to decrease the number of people who are being assaulted in every situation," he said. "We should do everything we can to decrease domestic violence. We should do everything we can to decrease random violence, and we should certainly do everything we can to decrease violence against people who are providing essential services, like medical care. Bills like this don't do that. That's really the problem. It increases the penalties after the fact, and the way to decrease violence is intervention early."

Opponents also said simply increasing penalties would add to Nebraska’s prison overcrowding problem, which is already leading the state to build a new $350 million prison.

“Seeking to increase penalties does not achieve the goal of reducing crime," said Sen. George Dungan. "We need to be smart on crime. All it does is put more people behind bars without any hope for actual rehabilitation or any hope to actually fix the underlying problems. So colleagues, if our goal, which it should be, is community safety, we need to be doing everything we can to invest upstream in programs that actually help community safety and don't simply lock people up."

Opponents also brought up fears that enhanced penalties would disproportionately affect developmentally disabled people. Sen. Dunixi Guereca read a letter from Edison McDonald, executive director of the developmental disability advocacy group ARC of Nebraska. The letter said people with developmental disabilities sometimes engage in behaviors that are involuntary.

“These behaviors are often a function of disability, not criminal intent. A family member recently shared with us our son, Donnie, would have been prosecuted under this law. He doesn't understand his actions. The staff should not be allowed to file charges for the behaviors they are trained and contracted to manage,” he read.

But Sen. Carolyn Bosn, supporting the bill, said that prosecutors would use their discretion, and the law already prevents developmentally disabled people from being charged.

“You still have to act with knowledge and intent to commit the crime," she said. "And if you are someone who has been diagnosed with a developmental disability, you lack the capacity, the requisite capacity to act in that manner,."

Debate continued throughout the day, progressing toward the eight-hours allotted for debate before supporters can attempt to end the filibuster. That attempt is expected to take place late morning on Wednesday.

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