In 2015, a tattoo artist named Raymond Stevens pleaded guilty to criminal mischief after defacing the homes of refugees in Concord with racist graffiti.

The hateful words scrawled on the siding were literal and clear: "You are not welcome here." Under the state's Civil Rights Act, prosecutors applied a hate crime enhancement to Stevens' sentence, resulting in a year of imprisonment in a county jail.

Amid nationwide protests against police brutality and a rise in violence against Asian Americans during the pandemic, lawmakers in some states are turning their attention to hate crimes laws.

From state to state, the way hate crimes are defined and prosecuted varies greatly, with some states treating these crimes as a specific offense and others codifying enhanced punishment options for them. Some states, including Arkansas, South Carolina and Wyoming, have no laws at all regarding hate crimes.

When Gloria Timmons first moved from Connecticut to New Hampshire three decades ago, seeing a face that looked like hers felt like an event.

“In 1990, I used to run across the street if I saw another Black person and say, ‘Hi, my name is Gloria Timmons, how long have you been here, where’d you come from?’ and that sort of thing,” she recalled.