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SEPTEMBER 14, 2000

President Bill Clinton is urging better reporting of hates crimes as well as the quick passage of legislation aimed at enhancing the government's ability to prosecute hate crimes.

Clinton made his suggestions Wednesday upon the release of a new study focusing on hate crimes. Based on a decade of research, the report was authored by the Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research at Northeastern University in Massachusetts and the Justice Research and Statistics Association in Washington, DC. It was paid for by a grant by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The report, "Improving the Quality and Accuracy of Bias Crime Statistics Nationally: An Assessment of the First Ten Years of Bias Crime Data Collection," says that police departments throughout the country do not often report hate crimes to the FBI. While 83 percent of more than 10,000 law enforcement agencies reported zero hate crimes to the FBI, 31 percent of those surveyed said they had investigated one or more incidents of hate crime.

The report concludes that many more such incidents are going unreported to the FBI. As a result, Clinton is directing the Department of Justice to work with state and local law enforcement to develop a plan to improve hate crime reporting within 120 days.

The report also says that victims of hate crimes often do not report them. Although the Justice Department has not specifically addressed hate crimes among American Indians, a 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics report that 7 out of 10 violent crimes against Indians are perpetuated by a person of another race.

American Indians are also victims of violent crime at more than twice the rate of all US citizens.

On Wednesday, Clinton also pressed the House to pass hate crimes legislation. The Senate in July voted in favor of legislation that enhances prosecution of violent crimes motivated by race, color, religion, or national origin authorizes federal prosecution of crimes motivated by sexual orientation, gender, or disability.

The House later on Wednesday agreed in a non-binding vote to include the legislation as part of a defense appropriations bill.

Relevant Links:
The Justice Research and Statistics Association - www.jrsainfo.org
The Northeastern University College of Criminal Justice - www.dac.neu.edu/cj
The Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice - www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs