Hate crimes increase 8% in US - Many hate crimes are not reported

NewsToBeRead

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation...-hate20.article

Hate crimes rise 8 percent
U.S. | Sharpton says numbers prove his point

November 20, 2007
BY MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
WASHINGTON -- Hate crime incidents rose nearly 8 percent last year,
the FBI reported Monday, as civil rights advocates increasingly take
to the streets to protest what they call official indifference.

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006
targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a race,
religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or
mental disability.

More than half the incidents were motivated by racial prejudice.
Illinois reported 156 incidents.

Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at a Jena,
La., high school occurred in 2006, they were not included in the
report. Only 12,600 of the nation's more than 17,000 local, county,
state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime
reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in
which the town is located, were among those reporting.

Nevertheless, the Jena incidents, and a subsequent rash of noose and
racial incidents around the country, have spawned civil rights
demonstrations that culminated last week at Justice Department
headquarters here. The department said it investigated the Jena
incident but decided not to prosecute because the federal government
does not typically bring hate crime charges against juveniles.

''The FBI report confirms what we have been saying for many months
about the severe increase in hate crimes,'' said the Rev. Al Sharpton,
who organized Friday's march.


http://www.mercurynews.com/politics...?nclick_check=1

Hate crimes increase in U.S., fall in state
BUT MANY POLICE AGENCIES DON'T REPORT INCIDENTS
By Tina Marie Maciasand Richard Winton
Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 11/20/2007 01:36:48 AM PST



LOS ANGELES - California bucked a national trend last year by
reporting a slight drop in the occurrence of hate crimes, while law
enforcement agencies throughout the nation reported a corresponding 8
percent increase, according to data released Monday.

According to an FBI national tally, there were 7,722 reported
incidents of crime motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, national origin, or physical or mental disability in 2006.
That figure represents a 7.8 percent increase from the 7,163 cases
reported in 2005.

Conversely, police in California reported a 6 percent decline: The
state as a whole saw its hate crime figures fall from 1,379 to 1,297.

However, there was one similarity between California and national
figures: At least half of all hate crime cases reported in 2006 were
motivated by race.

Statisticians and those who track hate crimes said it was difficult to
draw any hard conclusions from the government's data, because law
enforcement agencies are not required to submit hate-crimes
information to the FBI. Of the more than 17,000 police agencies across
the country, 12,600 provided data on incidents.

"The number of hate crime incidents increasing may be due to a
significant increase in the number of police agencies reporting
numbers," said Robin Toma, executive director of Los Angeles County
Human Relations Commission, which tracks hate crimes in the county.

Nationwide, Toma said, many agencies don't participate in the
gathering of hate crime data. Most notable, he said, was the
jurisdiction encompassing Jena, La., where incidents of hanging nooses
- symbols reminiscent of lynchings - and the beating of white students
by black youth in retaliation garnered heavy publicity. Despite these
events, authorities there do not participate in the annual hate crime
count.
In California however, "hate crime reporting is a part of the fabric
of law enforcement work," Toma said.

According to the FBI's national figures, race was the motivating
factor for 4,000 hate crimes last year, with 2,640 incidents
specifically targeting blacks. The total number of incidents is the
highest since 2001, when 9,730 hate crimes were reported. That spike
was believed related to anti-Arab or anti-Muslim incidents stemming
from the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the FBI's report for that
year.

The study found that 51.8 percent of all hate crimes in 2006 were
motivated by race, 18.9 percent by religion, 15.5 percent by sexual
orientation and 12.7 percent by ethnicity or national origin.

"The FBI report confirms what we have been saying for many months
about the severe increase in hate crimes," said the Rev. Al Sharpton.
"What is not reported, however, is the lack of prosecution and serious
investigation by the Justice Department to counter this increase in
hate crimes." Sharpton called for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to
meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and civil rights
leaders to discuss hate crime enforcement.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said federal prosecutors
convicted a record 189 defendants of civil rights violations in the
fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------