Hate crimes remain a festering and horrifying problem in the Unites States. Although there are laws on the books to deter hate crimes and protect their victims, significant gaps remain unfilled Hate crimes are distinguished from bias motivated incidents, which, while not falling under the umbrella of a criminal act, are often precursors to actual hate crimes or contribute to a general atmosphere of hostility.
Impact
The killings of James Byrd and Matthew Shepard, among other senseless acts of hatred, remind Americans that violence based on racial and other prejudices still occurs. Other brutal examples include a spree of hate-motivated shootings over the 1999 July 4th weekend in Illinois and Indiana, the murder of two gay men in California, and arson attacks on Sacramento synagogues. In August of 1999, a man with ties to white supremacist organizations is alleged to have opened fire at a Jewish daycare center in Los Angeles and murdered a Filipino-American postal worker. And on July 4, 2000, J.R. Warren, a 26-year old African American, gay man was attacked by two 17-year old boys who savagely beat him and then drove back and forth over him until he was dead. This is only a partial list.
Some additional examples of the magnitude of the hate violence problem in America:
- According to the FBI Hate Crime Statistics Report, there were a total of 8152 hate crimes reported around the country. 4368 (53.6%) were racial bias motivated; 1483 (18.2%) were religious bias motivated; sexual orientation bias accounted for 1330 (16.3%); ethnicity/national origin bias was the cause of 927 (11.4%); disability bias was connected with 36 (0.4%); and the remaining 8 incidents (0.1%) were the result of multiple biases.
- In 2001, The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium's annual Audit of Violence Against Asian Pacific Americans reports that 243 incidents against Asian Pacific Americans, generally South Asian Americans mistaken for Muslim and/or Arab Americans, occurred in the three months following 9/11.
- As of January 2002, the Intergroup Clearinghouse reports that there have been more than 1,700 cases of discrimination against Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Sikh Americans, and South Asian Americans.
Civil rights advocates have identified two important inadequacies in current federal hate crimes laws. First, current law does not protect all victims of hate crimes; they do not cover violence based on sexual orientation, gender or disability. Second, current law contains unnecessary jurisdictional obstacles to prosecuting hate crimes based on race, religion, and national origin.
Background
Congress, working in bipartisan fashion, has on several occasions tackled the problem of bigotry that spills over into violence. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990; the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act of 1994; and the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 are three such examples.
Enacted in 1990, the Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) requires the Justice Department to collect data on crimes which "manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity" from law enforcement agencies across the country and to publish an annual summary of the findings. In 1994, Congress expanded coverage of the HCSA to require FBI reporting on crimes motivated by bias against persons with disabilities. By reviewing statistics and charting the geographic distribution of these crimes, police officials may be able to recognize patterns and anticipate an increase in racial tensions in a given jurisdiction. However, the accuracy of the Hate Crime Statistic Report is hampered by the fact that law enforcement agencies are not required to participate.
Originally introduced by Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as freestanding legislation, the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act was enacted into law as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Pursuant to the Act, the United States Sentencing Commission established a sentencing enhancement of "not less than 3 offense levels for [federal] offenses that the finder of fact at trial determines beyond a reasonable doubt are hate crimes." The enhancement defines a hate crime as "a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person." In other words, sentences imposed on defendants convicted of federal crimes may be substantially increased if the crime is found to be motivated by bias. This measure--which covers only federal crimes--applies, for example, to bias-motivated attacks and vandalism that occur in national parks and on other Federal property. This enhancement took effect on November 1, 1995.
The Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 was enacted in response to a disturbing rash of arson directed at houses of worship, with African American churches disproportionately victimized. According to Justice Department officials, DOJ opened 658 investigations of suspicious fires, bombings, and attempted bombings from January 1, 1995, to August 18, 1998. Of the 658 attacks directed against houses of worship, 220 were predominantly African-American institutions.
The Church Arson Prevention Act was initially sponsored by Sens. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and by Reps. Henry Hyde (R-IL) and John Conyers (D-MI). In a welcome example of bipartisanship, both the House and the Senate unanimously approved the legislation, which broadened existing Federal criminal jurisdiction and facilitated criminal prosecutions for attacks against houses of worship, increased penalties for these crimes, established a loan guarantee recovery fund for rebuilding, and authorized additional law enforcement personnel "investigate, prevent, and respond" to these incidents. Recognizing that data collection efforts complement criminal prosecutions of hate crime offenders, Congress also included a continuing mandate for the HCSA.
Enactment of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA) has remained unfinished federal legislative business. The HCPA would expand the federal criminal hate crimes statute by removing unnecessary obstacles to federal prosecution of hate crimes based on race, religion, and national origin and providing authority, for the first time, for federal prosecution of certain hate crimes based on sexual origin, disability, and gender. Current federal law (18 U.S.C. Sec. 245) leaves federal prosecutors powerless to intervene in bias-motivated crimes unless they can establish the victim's involvement in a Federally-protected activity -- such as voting or going to school. Moreover, federal authorities cannot investigate or prosecute crimes involving death or serious bodily injury based on sexual orientation, gender, or disability-based bias when local law enforcement is unavailable or unwilling to proceed.
