Blacks Are Twice As Likely To Be Hate Crime Targets

By Makebra M. AndersonNNPA National Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – African-Americans were more than twice as likely to be victims of race-based hate crimes last year than all other racial groups combined, the FBI reports. According to the FBI, racial prejudice accounted for more than half of the 7,489 hate crimes reported in 2003, up slightly from 7,462 reported in 2002. Of the 3,844 incidents targeting race, 2,548 were directed against African-Americans, 830 against Whites, 231 against Asians and Pacific Islanders and 76 percent against Native Americans and Alaskan Natives. FBI data shows that hate crime reports have increased. In 1991 there were 4,558 hate crimes reported. It rose for two consecutive years, climbing to 7,587 in 1993. The number fell to 5,932 in 1994, but just one year later the number rose again and has continued to rise. Although the number of hate crimes against Blacks showed a slight increase, the prosecution of civil rights violations has declined. In the last three years, the number of FBI referrals for prosecution in civil rights cases dropped by 514. In 2001, the FBI referred 2,060 cases and in 2003 only 1,546, according to an analysis of Justice Department data by the Transactional Records Clearinghouse, a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization. In addition to the decrease in the number of referrals, the number of actual prosecutions from the referrals has also decreased. In 2001, 128 people were prosecuted in civil rights cases; only 62 were prosecuted the following year. The Department of Justice did not returned repeated phone calls from the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service seeking comment. “We’re extremely concerned about the decline in civil rights enforcement. We’ve had a number of talks and meetings with Congress and we’re pushing them to do a better job of enforcing civil rights laws,” said Hilary Shelton, director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Washington Bureau. Although the enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped, the number of civil rights complaints remains steady at approximately 12,000 annually according to the 2003 FBI Hate Crime Statistics Report. A criminal civil rights violation involves the use or threat of force, and can occur with hate crimes, migrant worker exploitation, law enforcement misconduct, religious interference or property damage, health care access interference, such as phone threats or bombing and slavery rings. “The number of hate crimes has not decreased,” says Shelton. “There really is no excuse. They’ve [FBI] chosen not to be vigilant in protecting human rights.” Of more than 7,000 hate crimes, racial bias represented 51.2 percent of reported incidents. Bias against religions represented 17.9 percent, sexual orientation bias represented 16.5 percent, ethnicity bias 13.7 percent and disability bias only represented 4 percent of reported incidents. Religious intolerance was the motivation behind 1,343 incidents. The majority of those were against Jews – 927, approximately the same as the year before. Reported attacks against Muslims fell from 155 in 2002 to 149 in 2003, according to the FBI. The number of attacks based on sexual orientation was 1,239 in 2003, slightly less than the 1,244 reported in 2002. The report shows that the states with the highest number of reported hate crimes were California with 1,472 (19.7 percent of crimes), followed by New York with 602 incidents (8 percent of crimes), New Jersey close with 594 (7.6) percent of crimes), Michigan at 427 reports (5.7 percent of crimes) and Massachusetts reporting 403 incidents (5.4 percent of crimes). Combined, these states account for 46.7 percent of all reported hate crimes in the United States. “It appears that since September 11 the FBI certainly has not been as vigilant about protecting and enforcing those same civil rights laws that make up the body of the freedoms we call the U.S. of America,” said Shelton. “In many ways it would be sad to think that somehow the terrorist were actually successful in stripping away the most precious liberty-our freedom.”