The statistics and examples demonstrate that violence against women is a severe problem -and suggests that the violence includes many bias-related crimes. The lack of precise data only highlights the need for resources to study and track the problem.
The federal response:
Under the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 and its extension in 1996, the Attorney General collects data on the number of crimes committed each year that are motivated by "prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity." The Attorney General has directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program to collect the data and produce annual reports.
Meanwhile, the FBI has trained almost 3,700 staff members from almost 1,200 state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies on how to prevent, prosecute, and deal with the aftermath of hate crimes.
In these training programs, the FBI works with the Justice Department's Community Relations Service (CRS). Created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, CRS is the only federal agency whose most important purpose is to help communities cope with disputes among different racial, religious, and ethnic groups. CRS professionals have helped with Hate Crime Statistics Act training sessions for hundreds of law enforcement officials from dozens of police agencies around the country.
In 1992, Congress approved several new programs under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act to combat hate crimes and reduce racial and religious prejudice:
- Each state's juvenile delinquency plan must include a component designed to combat hate crimes.
- The Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Programs (OJJDP) is conducting a national assessment of youths who commit hate crimes, their motives, their victims, and the penalties they receive for their crimes. The OJJDP has provided $100,000 for this study.
- OJJDP has also provided a $50,000 grant to develop a curriculum for preventing and treating hate crimes by juveniles.
In 1994, by a bipartisan majority, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act, a comprehensive federal response to the national problem of violence against women.79 This legislative package includes $1.6 billion in funding over six years for improved law enforcement and prosecution programs, victims services such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, and education and research programs. It also includes new domestic violence offenses, changes in immigration law and other legal forms. Most significantly, it includes a civil rights remedy -a provision allowing a woman to sue in federal or state court for an act of gender-motivated violence that rises to the level of a felony.80
In the aftermath of the rash of fires at black churches, and with the strong support of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Church Arsons Prevention Act of 1996. With bipartisan sponsorship by Reps. Henry Hyde and John Conyers and Sens. Edward Kennedy and Lauch Faircloth, it enhances federal jurisdiction over and increases the federal penalties for the destruction of houses of worship. And Congress and the Administration provided $12 million for a federal investigation of the church fires. In addition, the Act gives a continuing mandate to the Hate Crime Statistics Act.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) has undertaken a project to produce radio public service announcements on discrimination and denials of equal protection of the law. The first PSA "Discrimination: Just Out of Tune with America," was recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter and began running in January, 1996. The next PSA which will be recorded by Bill Cosby will carry the theme "Teach Children the Need to Be Tolerant and to Value Differences."
The USCCR held community forums on the church burnings in six Southern states "to conciliate, find facts and hear from people in the communities where the burnings took place." Transcripts of the forums and reports were issued on church burnings in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
The United States has ratified two core international human rights treaties that are relevant to the problem of hate crimes. In 1992, the United States ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, undertaking an international commitment to ensure that everyone in the U.S. enjoys the rights outlined in the treaty, including the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, "without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." In 1995, the U.S. presented its first compliance report to the Human Rights Committee, the United Nations body charged with monitoring State performance. The U.S. Government outlined federal laws that prohibit hate crimes and cited recent prosecutions by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division under these laws.
In 1994, the United States ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which places additional responsibilities on States party to the treaty to take "special and concrete measures to ensure the...protection of certain racial groups or individuals belonging to them, for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
