FBI Releases 2016 Hate Crime Data

Yesterday, the FBI released its Hate Crime Statistics 2016.  During the year, 6,121 hate crime incidents (including 6,063 single-bias incidents) were reported to law enforcement authorities.  This compares to 5,850 total incidents in 2015 (see prior posting). The 2016 data shows that 21% of the single-bias incidents (1,273 incidents) were motivated by religious bias. 684 of those incidents were anti-Jewish (up from 664 in 2015).  307 incidents were anti-Muslim (up from 257 in 2015). 62 were anti-Catholic (same as 2015).  ADL has created an interactive map illustrating the data.

Attorney General Sessions Speaks At Hate Crimes Summit

On June 29, Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered remarks (full text) at the Civil Rights Division's Hate Crimes Summit.  Sessions focused on recent hate crime arrests and convictions, saying in part:

The Department has prosecuted a number of high-profile hate crimes cases this year as we seek to bring criminals to justice.

In March ... a suspect was found and arrested in Israel for allegedly making threatening phone calls to Jewish community centers, inflicting terror across the nation.  In April, we brought federal charges against him, and our investigation into these acts as possible hate crimes continues....

Just last week, we sought and a federal grand jury returned an indictment against a man in Texas for burglary and arson of the Victoria Islamic Center.   He now faces up to 40 years in federal prison.   Earlier this month, a man in Tennessee was sentenced to over 19 years in prison for trying to recruit people to help him burn down a mosque in a small town in New York.   Also this month, the Department indicted a man from Kansas for shooting three men at a bar because he thought they were of Persian origin.... 

We have and will continue to enforce hate crime laws aggressively and appropriately where transgendered individuals are victims.  Last month, Joshua Brandon Vallum was sentenced to 49 years in prison for assaulting and murdering Mercedes Williamson.   This is the first case prosecuted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act involving the murder of a transgender person.

I personally met with the Department’s senior leadership and the Civil Rights Division to discuss a spate of murders around the country of transgender individuals.   I have directed the Civil Rights Division to work with the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify ways the Department can support the state and local law enforcement authorities investigating these incidents and to determine whether federal action would be appropriate.

New Hate Crime Data Released By DOJ

Yesterday the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics released (press release) a report on Hate Crime Victimization, 2004-2015. The data taken from its National Crime Victimization Survey showed that  on average 250,000 people per year were hate crime victims, and until 2015 a majority of these were not reported to police.  During 2011-2015, religious bias accounted for 17% of the perceived hate crimes. Racial bias accounted for 48%.

Canada's Parliament Adds Transgender Protections To Discrimination and Hate Crime Laws

Canada's Parliament last week gave final passage to Bill C-16 (full text). The bill adds "gender identity or expression" to Canada's Human Rights Act and to the Hate Propaganda provision of Canada's Criminal code.  The bill comes into force when it receives Royal Consent.  Christian Post reports on the bill and responses to it.  Canada's Justice Minister says:

The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that everyone can live according to their gender identity and express their gender as they choose. It will protect people from discrimination, hate propaganda and hate crimes.

A spokesman for Canada's Campaign Life Coalition, however, contends:

Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of 'shield' to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth.

Hate Crimes In Canada Up In 2015

Statistics Canada yesterday released data on Police Reported Hate Crimes, 2015. According to the release from the government statistical agency:

Hate crimes rose by 5% in Canada in 2015, largely due to an increase in incidents targeting certain religious and ethno-cultural groups, specifically the Muslim population and Arabs or West Asians. For the year, police reported 1,362 criminal incidents that were motivated by hate in Canada, 67 more than the previous year....

Police-reported hate crimes targeting the Muslim population increased from 99 incidents in 2014 to 159 incidents in 2015, an increase of 61%. At the same time, the number of police-reported crimes targeting the Jewish population declined from 213 in 2014 to 178 in 2015. Hate crimes targeting the Jewish population accounted for 13% of all hate crimes, followed closely by hate crimes targeting the Muslim population (12%).

Senate Committee Holds Hearing on Religious Hate Crimes

Yesterday the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Responses to the Increase in Religious Hate Crimes.  Transcripts of the prepared statements presented by 5 witnesses as well as by Senator Chuck Grassley are available on the Committee's website.

DOJ Gives New Emphasis To Combating Religious Hate Crimes

Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday issued a Memo (full text) to U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice component heads giving an update on DOJ's Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety. The Task Force will work through a number of subcommittees, one of which is a Hate Crimes Subcommittee. The Memo reads in part:

We must also protect the civil rights of all Americans, and we will not tolerate threats or acts of violence targeting any person or community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs or background.  Accordingly, the Hate Crimes Subcommittee will develop a plan to appropriately address hate crimes to better protect the rights of all Americans.  As with many other areas of the Task Force's work, we are already making significant progress toward our goal of a safer America.  Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with law enforcement partners in Israel and elsewhere, helped secure the arrest of a man believed to be responsible for the recent surge in threats of violence against Jewish community centers and synagogues.  I commend their outstanding efforts.

CNN reports on the Sessions Memo.

Attorney General Lynch Speaks To Interfaith Event About Hate Crimes

Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday spoke on the Justice Department’s Commitment to Combating Hate Crimes (full text of remarks) at an interfaith event held at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Reston, Virginia.  She said in part:

[A]ll of us have seen the flurry of recent news reports about alleged hate crimes and harassment – from hijabs yanked off of women’s heads; to swastikas sprayed on the sides of synagogues; to slurs and epithets hurled in classrooms....

These incidents – and these statistics – should be of the deepest concern to every American.  Because hate crimes don’t just target individuals.  They tear at the fabric of our communities, and they also stain our dearest ideals and our nation’s very soul.  There is a pernicious thread that connects the act of violence against a woman wearing a hijab to the assault on a transgender man to the tragic deaths of nine innocent African Americans during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina.... Regardless of our faith, we believe in our common humanity.... That is why the Department of Justice – and the entire Obama Administration – regards hate crimes with the utmost seriousness, whether they target individuals because of their race, their religion, their gender or their sexual orientation.  And that is why we have worked tirelessly over the last several years to bring those who perpetrate these heinous deeds to justice.

2015 Hate Crime Data Released

Yesterday, the FBI released its report on Hate Crime Statistics 2015. The ADL which follows hate crime data closely has compiled a summary of the new report's findings and of changes from 2014:

Reported hate crime incidents increased seven percent – from 5,479 to 5,850.

Religion-based crimes increased twenty-three percent, from 1,014 in 2014 to 1,244 in 2015.  Crimes directed against Jews increased nine percent; 53 percent of the total number of reported religion-based crimes were directed against Jews and Jewish institutions.

Reported crimes against Muslims increased 67 percent, from 154 in 2014 to 257 in 2015.  257 anti-Muslim hate crimes is the second most reported against Muslims ever – second only to the backlash crimes in 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist incidents.

In 2015, crimes directed against LGBT people increased almost four percent, from 1,017 to 1,053 – and, in just the third year of data collection on crimes directed against individuals on the basis of their gender identity, the numbers increased from 98 in 2014 to 114 in 2015 – now almost two percent of all hate crimes.

14, 997 law enforcement agencies in the United States participated in the 2015 data collection effort – a decrease from 15,494 participating agencies in 2014.....  88 percent of all participating police agencies affirmatively reported zero (0) hate crimes to the FBI (including at least 66 cities over 100,000)....

There were 18 hate crime murders reported in 2015, the most since 1994, and the second most over all 25 years of data collection.

... [T]his is the first year for anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu, and anti-Arab hate crimes (anti-Mormon and anti-Eastern Orthodox and other religious denominations, too.  The anti-Eastern Orthodox crimes were the largest reported in this new category – 48 in 2015)....

[Thanks to Michael Lieberman for the ADL data.]

"Blessing" Scam Leads To Hate Crime Charges

Last week, the Kings County (Brooklyn), New York district attorney announced that a 44-year-old woman has been indicted on charges of grand larceny as a hate crime for taking $160,000 in cash and jewelry from two Chinese women in separate incidents involving the same type of scam. The victims were told that they or family members would die because of a curse that could only be removed by gathering large sums of cash and jewels to be blessed. The victims were told to place the cash and jewels in a bag for the blessing.  When the victims later opened the bag, they found the cash and jewels gone. According to NBC News, the hate crime charges were based on the theory that the victims were targeted because of their Chinese ethnicity and because of their religious spiritual beliefs.

6th Circuit: Remaining Convictions In Amish Beard-Cutting Case Stand

In United States v. Mullet, (6th Cir., May 4, 2016), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed convictions of 15 members of the Bergholz, Ohio Amish community on charges of conspiracy, concealing evidence and lying to the FBI.  The convictions grew out of hair and beard-cutting attacks by one faction of the Amish community against other Amish. Originally defendants had also been convicted of hate crimes, but those convictions were reversed in an earlier appeal due to faulty jury instructions. The government chose not to retry defendants on those charges. (See prior posting.)  In yesterday's decision, the 6th Circuit held that because the challenges raised to the remaining convictions were not raised in the first appeal, they cannot be raised now.  The court also rejected various challenges to the sentences imposed by the trial court.  Reuters reports on the decision. [Thanks to Tom Rutledge for the lead.]

FBI Releases 2014 Hate Crime Statistics

The FBI this morning released its report on Hate Crime Statistics 2014.  The report shows 5,479 criminal incidents motivated by bias toward race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. This is down from 5,928 in 2013.  A further breakdown of the data shows that 17.1% of the single-bias incidents were motivated by religious bias.  18.7% were based on bias toward sexual orientation, and 48.3% reflected racial bias. Of the 1,140 victims of hate crimes motivated by religious bias, 56.8% were motivated by anti-Jewish bias, while 16.1% were motivated by anti-Muslim bias. 6.1% of the incidents were anti-Catholic; 2.5% were anti-Protestant; and 1.2% were anti-Atheist/Agnostic.  11% of the incidents were based on bias against other religions. [Thanks to Michael Lieberman for the lead.]

FBI Approves Revised Hate Crime Data Collection Manual

On Feb. 27, the FBI approved a revised version of its Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines And Training Manual.  The new version adds definitions and scenarios for categories of hate crimes on which data is to be collected for the first time beginning this year-- anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu and anti-Arab hate crimes. (See prior posting.) [Thanks to Michael Lieberman for the lead.]

Amish Beard-Cutting Attackers Resentenced After Reversal of Hate Crimes Convictions

Last August, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the hate crimes convictions of 16 members of the Bergholz Amish community who had been charged in beard and hair-cutting attacks on other Amish men and women. The court found that jury instructions on motivation were erroneous. (See prior posting.)  As reported by AP, on Monday the judge who had tried the case resentenced the defendants on the remaining convictions-- primarily conspiracy to obstruct justice. The leader, Sam Mullett, Sr. had his sentence reduced from 15 years to 10 years and 9 months.  Other defendants had up to two years taken off their sentences so that they will serve either 3 and one-half or 5 years. Eight of the defendants have already completed their original sentences.

Following the resentencing, federal prosecutors notified the court that they will not retry defendants on the hate crimes offenses. Northeast Ohio Media Group reports on this development in an article that includes the full text of the notice filed with the court by the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Philadelphia Passes Hate Crimes Ordinance

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that on Thursday Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed Bill No. 140720 (full text) which provides an additional penalty of up to 90 days in jail and a $2000 fine where any of several crimes are motivated by hatred toward the actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender or gender identity, or disability of the victims. It is expected that Mayor Nutter will sign the bill into law.

Today Is 5th Anniversary of Expanded Hate Crimes Law

Today is the 5th anniversary of the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Pre­ven­tion Act (Pub. L. 111-84).  The important legislation was enacted essentially as a rider to the lengthy 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. (See prior posting.)  In a blog post earlier this month, the ADL reviews the history of the law and the present state of hate crimes enforcement.

6th Circuit Reverses Hate Crime Convictions In Amish Beard-Cutting Case

In an important decision under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision reversed the convictions of 16 members of the Bergholz Amish community for their roles in beard and hair-cutting attacks on other Amish men and women. In United States v. Miller, (6th Cir., Aug. 27, 2014), the majority held that the district court gave an erroneous instruction to the jury on motivation that went to the central issue in the trial.

18 USC Sec. 249 prohibits willfully causing bodily injury "because of" the victim's actual or perceived religion. The entire panel agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court's January 2014 decision in Burrage v. United States, which post-dated the district court's decision, should be read to require "but for" causation here. The district court judge had refused to giv e a "but for" causation instruction, and instead instructed the jury that the victims' religion need only be a "significant factor" in motivating the assaults. Judge Sutton's majority opinion on appeal, after closely examining the testimony at trial, concluded:

When all is said and done, considerable evidence supported the defendants’ theory that interpersonal and intra-family disagreements, not the victims’ religious beliefs, sparked the attacks. And all of this evidence could have given a reasonable juror grounds to doubt that religion was a but-for cause of the assaults.

Judge Sargus (sitting by appointment) dissented arguing that there can be more than one "but-for" causes, and that here it was only because of the religious significance of the act that defendants chose to cut off the hair and beards of their victims. He contended that the majority had wrongly required faith-based animus in order to convict.  New York Times, reporting on the decision, points out that defendants are still in prison on other charges.  [Thanks to Tom Rutledge for the lead.]

FBI Releases 2012 Hate Crime Statistics

Yesterday the FBI released its annual report -- 2012 Hate Crime Statistics. The data show that in 2012, some 19% of the hate crime incidents (1,166 offenses) were motivated by religious bias. Of these, 59.7% were anti-Jewish: 12.8% were anti-Islamic; 6.8% were anti-Catholic; 2.9% were anti-Protestant, and 1% were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism; 9.2% were against unspecified or other religions. 7.6% involved bias against multiple religious groups.  The ADL yesterday issued a press release complaining that over 25% of the country's law enforcement agencies failed to provide the FBI with numbers for 2012 (almost 1500 fewer agencies than last year).  Thus it is unclear how much of a seeming 7% decline in hate crimes since 2011 is due to under reporting. Times of Israel reports on the data.

Tonight Is 75th Kristallnacht Anniversary; New Data On Antisemitism In Europe and U.S. Released

A statement (full text) issued yesterday by President Obama points out that tonight marks the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht-- the violent Nazi-party inspired anti-Jewish pogroms carried out in 1938 in Germany and German -annexed territory in Austria and Czechoslovakia. Kristallnacht marked a turning point that led to ever-increasing anti-Jewish actions by the Nazi regime. Yesterday, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights released a new report titled Discrimination and Hate Crime Against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism. Several related publications were also released.This is the first report to collect comparable current data across 8 EU countries-- Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.  These countries are home to 90% of EU's Jewish population. Among the key findings were:

66% of respondents consider antisemitism to be a major problem in their countries, while 76% said the situation had become more acute over the last five years.

21% of all respondents have experienced an antisemitic incident or incidents involving verbal insult, harassment or a physical attack in the 12 months preceding the survey. 2% of respondents had been victims of an antisemitic physical attack over the previous year.

In related developments, the Jewish Museum Berlin hosted a conference last night and today titled Antisemitism in Europe Today: the Phenomena, the Conflicts. A Haaretz op-ed criticized organizers for scheduling the conference on the Jewish Sabbath, thereby effectively precluding participation by observant Jews.  And, according to JTA, earlier this week a German hotel, the Kristall Sauna Wellnesspark in Bad Klosterlausnitz, in the former eastern German state of Thuringen, apologized for the ad it had run promoting a "long, romantic Kristall-Nacht" on November 9.

In the United States, the ADL on Oct. 28 released its 2013 Survey About Attitudes Toward Jews In America. It concluded that 12% of Americans have deeply entrenched anti-Semitic attitudes, a 3% decline from the last poll in 2011.  Meanwhile, the New York Times reported earlier this week on the extensive anti-Semitic harassment of students in the New York State Pine Bush Central School District.