New Jersey's legislature is considering a bill that would drastically increase the penalities for making false bomb threats.
Assemblyman Gordon Johnson has introduced a bill that, if adopted, would make it a fourth-degree crime, instead of a misdemeanor, to make such false threats.
Johnson said the bill was a response to the string of threats aimed at Jewish community centers, synagogues and schools earlier this year. “If a person feels he or she can go out and call in a bomb threat, either as a hoax or to intimidate a group of people, they’ll think twice because the penalty is elevated,” he said.
There were 157 anti-Semitic incidents last year and 24, so far, this year, which is why Jewish leaders have urged legislators to pass the bill.
The proposal calls for up to 30 years in prison for making threats that are found to be part of bias intimidation. However, police say it was still extremely difficult to trace automated calls like the majority of threats phoned in to schools in the area.
