Civil Rights Groups Continue to Push for Hate Crimes Legislation
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 3/2/2007
Civil rights groups are pushing for the introduction of a bill that would expand the definition of hate crimes and provide federal support for state and local law enforcement in their prosecution of bias-related violent crime.
"We are very optimistic that Congress will enact the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act in the 110th Congress," said Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). "This legislation has been endorsed by every major law enforcement organization in the country, 31 state Attorneys General and over 210 civic, religious, civil rights, and education groups."
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act (LLEHCPA) has been approved separately in the House and the Senate by bipartisan majorities on a number of occasions since 2000, but final passage has been blocked by the House Republican leadership.
Recent data shows that hate violence continues to be a problem in the U.S. Recent FBI statistics for 2005 showed a slight decline in hate crimes (about 7,163 down from 7,649 in 2004.), but major cities like New York City, Phoenix and states like Alabama and Mississippi did not report. Civil rights groups called the 2005 statistics "incomplete" and "a setback to the progress the Bureau has made in the [hate crimes] program."
The LLEHCPA will broaden the definition of hate crimes to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender, and disability. It also makes grants available to state and local communities to combat violent crimes committed by juveniles, train law enforcement officers, or to assist in state and local investigations and prosecutions of bias motivated crimes.
"Every year, hundreds of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans are victims of bias-motivated violence," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. "It is time that Congress finally act to provide state and local law enforcement agencies extra help from the federal government to investigate and prosecute these violent crimes."
