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USATODAY.com
FBI: Hate crimes up
nearly 8% in 2006
By Marisol Bello,
from the Web, November 19, 2007
The number of hate crimes in the U.S.
rose by 8% in 2006 with some of the biggest increases against gays, Hispanics
and Muslims.
Statistics released Monday by the FBI show that of the 7,722 hate crimes that
occurred, more than half were racially motivated.
The number of hate crimes against whites increased 7%, from 828 in 2005 to 890 a
year later. While the number of incidents against blacks remained steady,
the majority of racially-motivated hate crimes, almost seven out of 10, are
committed against blacks.
"Groups that traditionally have been attacked continue to be attacked," says
Brian Levin, a criminologist and executive director of the Center for the Study
of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino.
"But we're seeing a democratization of hate, albeit to a smaller degree.
The light incremental moves reflect a general trend that we hear anecdotally
that nobody has a monopoly on hate."
The number of attacks on gays increased by 18%, from 2005 to 2006, while the
number of incidents against Hispanics increased by 10%.
Attacks against Muslims increased 22% from 156 in 2006 to 128 in 2005.
However, the number is down significantly from 2001, when 481 incidents were
recorded.
Levin says the increases reflect the tension in the ongoing public dialogue
about gay rights, terrorism and immigration. "They spill over into violent
incidents," he says.
Hate crimes have gained national attention since the case of the Jena Six, six
black students who were charged in 2006 with beating a white classmate in rural
Jena, La.
The beating followed a number of racial incidents, including one incident where
three white students hung nooses on a schoolyard tree. None of the
incidents that occurred in Jena in 2006 were counted as hate crimes.
Since July of this year, the case has touched off a series of hangings of nooses
in schools and workplaces that led the Justice Department to create a task force
to investigate more than 40 incidents.
On Friday, civil rights activists including Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King
III led thousands to demonstrate in front of the Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C., to protest the department's handling of hate crimes.
In a statement, Sharpton said "The FBI report confirms what we have been saying
for many months about the severe increase in hate crimes and why many thousands
of citizens marched on Friday -- in front of the U.S. Justice Department.
What is not reported, however, is the lack of prosecution and serious
investigation by the Justice Department to counter this increase in hate
crimes."
In 2006, the Justice Department prosecuted the fewest hate crimes in 10 years.
The department charged 22 people with hate crimes in 2006, down 71% from 76 in
1997.
Erik Ablin, a spokesman for the Justice Department, has said the decline in
prosecution mirrored an overall decrease through 2005 in hate crime reports.
The department also focused more attention on other types of civil rights cases,
including police abuse and human trafficking.
While the FBI data is the only available data that tracks hate crime incidents
yearly, it is still flawed because victims often are afraid to report crimes and
police agencies report inconsistently, says Steve Wessler, executive director
for the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. For example, in 2006,
12,620 police agencies reported incidents, compared to 12,417 in 2005.
Wessler says the number of hate crimes is likely higher. He and other
anti-hate advocates point to a survey published in 2005 by the Bureau of Justice
Statistics that found that the number of annual hate crimes is closer to
191,000.
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