10 Truths About Hate Crimes

Coral Ridge Ministries
Dr. D. James Kennedy, Founder

From the 10 Truths Series
TRUTH # 2 Hate Crime Laws Are a Solution in Search of a Problem

It’s bad. It will only get worse. That, in brief, is the overblown assessment from many in academia, the media, and politics on the threat posed to our nation by what authors Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt have called “the rising tide of bigotry and bloodshed."

Levin and McDevitt, both professors at Northeastern University, announced in 1993,
It has become nearly impossible to keep track of the shocking rise in brutal attacks directed against individuals because they are black, Latino, Asian, white, disabled, women, or gay .… As ugly as this situation is now, it is likely to worsen throughout the remainder of the decade and into the next century as the forces of bigotry continue to gain momentum.

“Hate crimes,” according to a 1997 U.S. Justice Department policy training manual, are “one of the Nation’s most insidious problems.” Ten years later, that “insidious” problem had become, in the words of U.S. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, “an epidemic of hate crimes and intimidation occurring nationwide from Jena, Louisiana, to College Park, Maryland.” New York Times readers learned in 2007 that “the level of hate crimes in the United States is astoundingly high—more than 190,000 incidents per year, according to a 2005 Department of Justice study.”

What Are the True Numbers?
The FBI reports a much different picture. The number of so-called hate crimes reported to the FBI dropped eight percent between 1995 and 2006. There were 9,895 “bias motivation” offenses reported in 1995. Eleven years later, there were 9,080.

The fabulous claim in the New York Times that 190,000 “hate crime” incidents take place annually—a number 21 times greater than what the FBI reported for 2006—stems from a national survey which employed a much looser definition for “hate” than that employed by the FBI. It also illustrates just how ambiguous and subjective the entire “hate crime” enterprise is. “Hate” is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, which yielded the chart-topping numbers for hate crimes reported in the New York Times, relied on victims’ own reports. In addition, it used a definition for “hate” that cast the net just about as widely as possible. It counted as a hate crime any offense in which, at a minimum, the offender was said to have used “derogatory language.” As the 2005 Justice Department review of the survey put it, with some understatement, “This may or may not be an accurate way to evaluate whether the crime was a hate crime.”

A Closer Look at the Numbers
Not only has the number of “hate crimes”—as reported by law-enforcement professionals—declined, but “intimidation,” a low-level offense, made up nearly half (46 percent) of all these crimes in 2006. The FBI defines intimidation as threatening words or other conduct which places an individual in fear of bodily harm, but without actual physical attack. The balance of the crimes against persons in 2006 classified as “hate crimes” were simple assault (31.9 percent) and aggravated assault (21.6 percent). Only three murders and six forcible rapes were reported as “hate crimes.”

Set against the so-called epidemic of hate crimes in America are the 11,401,313 total crimes committed against persons or property in 2006. This is compared to the 9,080 “bias motivation” crimes committed in that year. “Hate crimes” account for .08 percent of the total crime problem facing America.

But that’s not all. Just 1,415 of the 9,080 hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2006 were identified as offenses motivated by prejudice against the victim’s sexual orientation. Crimes against homosexuals as an identified class are just .012 percent of all crimes committed in America. Despite that, both the House and Senate passed hate crime legislation in 2007 to increase penalties for crimes motivated in some measure by bias against the victim’s “sexual orientation.” This proposed federal remedy, which has vast and ominous implications for the family and free speech, comes despite the minute number of hate crimes against homosexuals committed each year. Only a veto threat from President George W. Bush kept the measure from becoming law.

Is the Impact Greater?
Actually, crimes of bias or prejudice—which carry more severe penalties—are not any worse in their impact than other crimes. However, the added penalties imposed on hate crimes offenders can be draconian. Alabama’s hate crime law, for example has a mandatory added sentence of 15 years for felony offenses; Florida’s bias crime law triples the maximum penalty applicable for the same offense, but without evidence of hate.

A widely asserted justification for these tougher penalties is that bias crimes “tend to be excessively brutal.” The Justice Department under the Clinton administration made that charge and asserted that hate crimes “result in more serious injuries than common criminal attacks.” That claim, however, is not supported by empirical research. While academics and policymakers regard that claim as a “truism,” legal scholar Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld writes, “The truth … is that there is little empirical evidence to support this claim.”

Interest groups and scholars also justify more severe penalties for hate crimes by claiming that bias crimes do greater psychological damage than other crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court itself made that claim in a 1993 opinion by stating, without evidence, that hate crimes are “more likely to . . . inflict distinct emotional harm on their victims.”

Again, this claim is not supported by research. A 1994 study found that victims of “hate crimes” do not suffer more than other victims of crime. Paul Aganski, a scholar who has reviewed the literature on this question, calls the findings “equivocal.” According to Aganski, “not all of the findings to date conclusively demonstrate a distinct class of psychic injury associated with hate crimes.”

An Offense Against Society?
A third reason offered to justify harsher sentences for hate crimes is that bias-motivated crimes hurt innocent third parties. Sociologists Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt claim that “hate crimes are offenses against society. They target not only a primary victim, but everyone in the victim’s group—in fact, everyone perceived as different.”

However, crimes committed out of bigotry or bias are hardly unique in sending a wave of fear and anxiety through a community. A string of brutal rapes on a college campus will greatly disturb and trouble female students. A series of home invasions will profoundly unsettle residents in a community. Concern over crime is something shared by all Americans, regardless of their ethnicity or their pattern of sexual behavior.

Not only are bias crimes not a significant national problem, but their effect is no worse than any other assault on person or property. When crimes are committed out of prejudice, the physical, emotional, and social impacts are no greater than those from generic crimes. In fact, the third-party impact of hate crimes is likely lessened, due to the fact that most crimes classified as hate crimes are low-level offenses. Intimidation and simple assault, as noted above, made up 77.9 percent of all hate crime offenses against persons in 2006. doesn’t work out so well.

The Case for Hate Crime Laws Stumbles Badly
When you add up the numbers and examine the impact, the case for hate crime laws stumbles badly. Legal scholar Daniel Troy has stated, “There is little if any evidence that states are not prosecuting all of the crimes that the proponents of such laws want to see prosecuted. And there is no evidence that serious crimes are being ignored.”

But if there is no evidence that hate crime laws are going to punish criminal behavior that is not already being prosecuted, there is plenty of evidence that such laws will increase a dangerous trend toward criminalizing thought. In effect, “hate crime” laws are already making certain viewpoints and beliefs criminal