Tag Archives: hate crimes

Cyberbullying and Hate Crimes

A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone’s race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical or mental disability.

Laws vary by state. Some states define a hate crime as any crime based on a belief regarding the victim’s race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, or ancestry. Some states exclude crimes based on a belief regarding the victim’s sexual orientation. Others limit their definition to certain crimes such as harassment, assault, and damage to property. In all states, the victim’s actual status is irrelevant. In other words, if someone attacks a victim he believes is gay, the attack is a hate crime whether or not the victim is actually gay. If hate crimes are provided for by statute, the definitions of hate crimes and penalties imposed vary. But states that have hate crime statutes provide harsher penalties for such offenses.

New Jersey prosecutors are considering seeking harsher penalties against Rutgers University students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, accusing them of invading Tyler Clementi’s privacy by secretly filming his sexual encounter with another man and posting the footage on the Internet. Clementi threw himself from the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22. A day earlier, he had posted a message online saying how upset he was over the spying.

The case raises clear issues about cyberbullying and invasion of privacy. Ravi and Wei could face five years in prison if convicted. But prosecutors have let it be known that they are considering additional penalties based on New Jersey’s hate crime statutes. Those statutes come into play at the time of sentencing in New Jersey, rather than as a separate cause of action.

Lawyers for the two Rutgers University freshmen contend that hate crime charges are not justified and that many unfair assumptions have been made about their clients.

If Ravi and Wei are tried and convicted of invasion of privacy, should their sentences be extended based on New Jersey hate crime statutes? Regardless of the outcome, this is a legal and moral question that at least needs to be considered.

Hate Crimes

The FBI reported earlier this week that hate crimes jumped in 2008. Overall, hate crimes rose to their highest levels since 2001, when anti-Islamic incidents following the 9/11 attacks increased the annual total to over 9,000. For 2008, the total number of bias crimes was 7,783, a two percent rise from 2007.

Attacks based on the religion of the victim in 2008 rose nearly 9 percent over the previous year. Jews and Jewish institutions continue to account for two-thirds of religiously motivated attacks, even though Jews make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population.

Racially motivated attacks against African-Americans rose more that 8 percent in 2008. While crimes against blacks rose, attacks against whites declined during the same time period. Racially motivated attacks continued to account for about half of all bias crimes.

Now that we have our first African-American president whose place of birth and presidential legitimacy are still being questioned by extremists, the number of hate crimes against blacks has undoubtedly increased in 2009.

Religiously motivated attacks were second in 2008 at 19.5 percent, followed by crimes involving sexual orientation at 16.7 percent. The number of incidents based on sexual orientation increased slightly in 2008, but the number of lesbian, gay or transgender victims rose by 11 percent, the third consecutive year that figure has risen. The hateful rhetoric directed toward gays and lesbians and against gay marriage likely means that hate crimes against those individuals have continued to increase in 2009. Doctors and clinics that perform abortions will also continue to be targets.

The FBI reported that 11.5 percent of hate crimes were motivated by ethnicity or national origin, with about two-thirds of those against Hispanic targets. Interestingly, this number was down significantly from 2007.

The majority of the 5,542 offenses were classified as crimes against persons. Acts of intimidation, which includes such offenses as harassment, accounted for 48.8 percent of crimes against persons. Simple assaults accounted for 32.1 percent of the crimes, and aggravated assaults for 18.5 percent. Seven individuals were murdered. The rest of the incidents were classified as offenses against property, such as arson and vandalism.

Unfortunately, given the increasingly vitriolic climate and race baiting in the country, 2009 hate crime statistics are likely to be much worse.

Domestic Terrorists

Remember when The Department of Homeland Security issued its April 7 report warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity.” The report warned that the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could increase the number of hate crimes. The nine-page document entitled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the country.

Remember when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was forced to issue an apology after conservatives vehemently objected to the report and claimed that the government considered anyone a terrorist threat if they opposed abortion, owned a gun or were a returning war veteran.

Remember when the Obama administration issued a warning about left-wing extremists last January and conservatives strenuously objected. Okay, that’s a trick question. I don’t remember hearing objections from conservatives and neither do you because it never happened. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember liberals objecting to the report either. Both reports, by the way, were initiated during the administration of George W. Bush.

The Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including both racist or hate groups, and also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority. “It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Now, following the recent killings in Little Rock, Arkansas, Wichita, Kansas and at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., Attorney General Eric Holder called for new hate crimes laws to stop what he called “violence masquerading as political activism.” Holder wants Congress to pass an updated version of hate crimes legislation in order to more effectively prosecute those who commit violent attacks based on ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation.

His call comes at a time when there has been a surge in white supremacist activity. 2007 statistics compiled by the FBI indicate that hate crime against, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Arab-Americans and Muslims have risen since 2001, as has crimes perpetuated against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in February that the number of hate groups has risen by more than 50 percent since 2000. It attributed the growth mainly to fears about nonwhite immigration, but said Obama’s election and the downward economy also were contributing factors.

It appears that the Justice Department and federal law enforcement may finally be willing to act against right wing extremists. Still, I believe we have far more to fear from domestic terrorists than we do from al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

Hate Crimes

While the majority of the country celebrates the election of our first black President, hate crimes such as cross burnings, assaults, black figures hung from nooses and racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars are on the rise. A store in Maine even started a pool where customers could wager a dollar on a date when Obama would be killed.

The sudden increase in racial hate crimes comes on the heels of a recently released FBI report showing that the total number of reported hate crimes involving race and religion actually declined slightly in the United States in 2007. The same report, however, revealed that hate crimes involving sexual orientation are increasing. Crimes against Hispanics also increased for the fourth year in a row. The vast majority of perpetrators in both these crimes were white males.

The term “hate crime” didn’t enter the nation’s vocabulary until the 1980s, when emerging hate groups like the Skinheads launched a wave of bias-related crime. However, the FBI began investigating what we now call hate crimes back in 1922 when they opened their first Ku Klux Klan case.

At the time, the Klan had grown so powerful that Louisiana Governor John M. Parker claimed it effectively controlled the northern half of the state and had kidnapped, tortured, and killed two people and threatened many more. Parker petitioned President Harding to act under the constitutional guarantee that the federal government would protect the states from domestic violence. In 1924, Edward Young Clarke, an advertising executive in the state of Louisiana and Imperial Kleagle of the Klan, pled guilty in federal court to violating the Mann Act. Clarke had been caught taking his mistress across state lines.

The FBI reports are entirely statistical and the bureau offers no explanation for the changes in data, nor does it compare statistics from year to year because the number of law enforcement agencies participating in the data-collection program varies annually. Therefore, one could posit that the increase in crimes against blacks is an aberration rather than a trend, similar to the wave of anti-Muslim violence that swept the country after 9-11. The increase in crimes against gays might be driven in part by the anti-gay rhetoric we hear from some political candidates and church leaders involved in the heated debate over gay marriage. In a similar fashion, the contentious debate over illegal immigration might be driving the increase in crimes against Hispanics. Finding an acceptable resolution to these issues might lead to a decrease in hate crimes.

Regardless of its causes, the Anti-Defamation League reports that nearly one hate crime occurs every hour of every day of the year in the United States. So while we can be proud of the fact that the country took a giant step forward with the election of our first black President, violent bigotry and hatred is, unfortunately, still alive in the United States.