Chapter 8 Flashcards
What as an infamous example of a hate crime?
> Robert Gregory Bowers perpetrated the deadliest hate crime against Jewish citizens in the United States.
> Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue where Shabbat morning services were underway. Armed with a semiautomatic rifle and a number of handguns, Bowers immediately opened fire, shooting at anyone he saw.
> Bowers left eleven individuals dead, another seven wounded,
> was prompted by anti-Semitism.
What has been a feature of anti-semitism? What are two prominient theory of this feature?
> Conspiracy theories such as:
1) white genocide theory that suggests white Americans and western civilization are being destroyed through immigration, and
2) migrant caravans heading to the United States from Central America in 2018 were actually part of a Jewish plot aimed at undermining and weakening the United States.
Have hate crimes been increasing?
> hate crimes have been on the rise in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Are hate crimes interconnected with other forms of violence?
> Yes
> previous hate-filled violence can inspire further violence
> example - mass shootings (Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist from South Carolina, went to a historic Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed nine members of the congregation during a prayer service interconnected as it was leading to the rally and the violence in Charlottesville)
- Were hate crimes prosecuted the same way back then?
- What crime would they usually be prosecuted?
- What is a specific case example?
> were typically prosecuted as ordinary offenses based on the underlying behavior rather than the motivating element of bias or hatred of a group.
> prosecuted for civil rights violations, a federal crime since 1871, when congress passed the Civil Rights Act.
> the 1994 prosecution of four Los Angeles Police Department officers who were caught on video tape beating Black motorist Rodney King (recieved this sentence)
- What is the the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)?
- What did they create a successful lobbying campaign for?
- What organizations assisted them?
- Overall, what were they all campagining to get laws for and what has that term since been renamed?
- is an organization founded to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice,
- began a successful lobbying campaign to pass hate crime legislation based on a model statute that they developed.
- Assisted by other organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Institute for Prejudice and Violence, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,
- to get laws against what they first termed ethnic intimidation (later renamed bias-motivated crime) enacted into law.
What term did the ADL coin?
> they first termed ethnic intimidation (later renamed bias-motivated crime)
What was the work of the ADL instrumental for?
> Was instrumental in the adoption of hate crime laws for many states and the federal government.
What two cases have come to be synonymous with modern American hate crime?
> the James Byrd case in 1998 and the killing of Matthew Shepard that same year.
What is the case of James Byrd?
> James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African American, declined a ride home from a friend during a party and decided to walk home alone on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Jasper, Texas.
> A gray pickup truck driven by Shawn Berry, the 23-year-old manager of a local movie theater, and two other men Byrd did not know pulled up.
> He and two other men, Bill King and Russell Brewer, had picked Byrd up on Martin Luther King Boulevard; they then drove him up to Huff Creek Road, beat him up in a clearing, spray-painted his face black, and then dragged him with a logging chain tied to his ankles about three miles before they dumped his body at the side of the road. Byrd’s head and arm had been cut off when his body was pulled over a sharp metal culvert.
How did the town of Jasper, specifically those from African American communities show support for James Byrd?
> To demonstrate their support, thousands wore yellow ribbons, and at Byrd’s funeral, speeches about reconciliation and healing were given by dignitaries, including Jesse Jackson and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and a letter from then–President Bill Clinton was read.
When was the first time that the term hate crime came to the forefront of public consciousness in the United States? (what crime?)
> The brutal murder of James Byrd Jr.
What was the case of Matthew Shepard?
> was a 21-year-old college student who attended the University of Wyoming.
> On the evening of October 7, 1998, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney went to a known gay bar with the intent of targeting a gay man for robbery.
> They met Shepard there and offered him a ride home.
> Instead of taking him home, however, they took him to a remote area, tied him to a fence post, pistol-whipped him in the head to unconsciousness, and left him there to die.
> Shepard was found more than 18 hours later by a cyclist.
> He never regained consciousness and died four days later on October 12.
At the time of both Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.’s deaths, most states did not have hate crime statutes. Today, how many states have these statues? What are the exceptions?
ARKNS,GRGA, SCLINA, WYOM
> 46 states and the District of Columbia have some sort of bias crime legislation, the exceptions being Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming.
Generally, these statutes add additional time onto sentence lengths for those convicted of hate-motivated offenses. For example, after the Tree of Life Synagogue mass murders, federal prosecutors charged Robert Bowers with many crimes, including the following:
> 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death;
> 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence;
> 2 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury;
> 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence;
> 8 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon, and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer; and
> 1 count of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer.29
Similar to all crime statutes, however, there is a great deal of variability in how and when offenses are considered:
> a hate crime
A hate crime is not a specific kind of offense but is instead considered:
> an existing offense that is perpetrated because of some underlying prejudice or hatred perceived by the offender(s)
When is an “ordinary crime” considered a hate crime? In hate crimes, what do prosecuters have to prove?
> an ordinary crime becomes a hate crime when offenders select a victim because of some characteristic, such as the victim’s race or religion.
> prosecutors must typically demonstrate that a victim is targeted because of their group affiliation.
With respect to hate crimes, the specific victim is not necessarily chosen because of who they are or what they did but simply because of what?
> they belong to a particular group.
What quality do hate crimes share with genocide?
> quality of impersonal victimization is something that hate crimes share with genocide
> aka they simply belong to a particular group - not because of who they are or what they did
Can genocides be considered a hate crime?
> genocides can be considered an extreme, systematic, and collective type of hate crime.
What is the legal and specific definiton of a hate crime as provided by the FBI?
> A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.
What are some characteristics that statues may include in their definition of a hate crime?
A,G, PA, TRNS, GI
> age, gender, political affiliation, and transgender status or gender identity.
What is another term that is used to describe a hate crime?
> As the language of the FBI definition suggests, bias crime is sometimes used as another term for hate crime.
The first major hate crime legislation passed at the federal level was what?
> the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990.
What is the purpose of the Hate Crime Stats Act of 1990?
> the law directed the attorney general to collect data “about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity
What act amended the Hate Crime Stats Act of 1990? What did this amendement include?
> In September 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act,
which amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include both physical and mental disabilities.
The most recent law enacted at the federal level against hate crimes is what?
> the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act; it was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010.
What was the purpose of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act? What acts did it include in its expansion?
> The law expanded federal hate crime legislation
got it to include violence based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in addition to the existing criteria based on race and religion.
What level are offenders prosecuted for hate crimes?
> at state level
> but, hate crime charges are also brought against offenders at the federal level (example the federal conviction and sentencing of Dylann Roof)
Are hate crime prosecutions successful in being made for victimizations that are typically thought as not motivated by hate? If so, what is a specific case?
> yes- are successfully being made for victimizations not typically thought of as motivated by hate.
> For example, on September 20, 2012, Samuel Mullet Sr., a leader of a so-called renegade Amish sect, and 15 of his followers were convicted in federal court of hate crimes for terrorizing another Amish community in eastern Ohio by forcefully shaving the beards of men and cutting the hair of both men and women.
Because the category of hate crimes is relatively new, collecting data on their prevalence is also relatively recent. In 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted what act to change this?
> In 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996, which mandated the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program to begin collecting statistics on offenses motivated by bias against physical and mental disabilities in January 1997.
What is important to note about UCR data in general?
> it is only based on crimes that are reported to the police.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) did not start asking victims about whether they perceived they were targeted because of bias until what year?
> 2003
As with the vast majority of interpersonal violence, data from the NCVS is what compared to UCR data? One analysis by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that what percentage of hate crimes are reported to law enforcement?
> data from the NCVS is more valid and reliable than police report data because only a fraction of victimizations are reported to police
> For example, one analysis by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that less than half of hate crimes (44%) are reported to law enforcement.
In the the breakdown of 7,106 single-bias crime incidents reported to the police in 2017 by the type of bias- the largest percentage of these crimes were based on what? What were the least common reports?
G: R/E-B, RB, SOB. L: D, GI, GB.
> were based on racial and ethnic bias, followed by both religious and sexual orientation bias.
> The least common types of hate crime reported to law enforcement concern disabilities, gender identity, and gender bias.
A particular criminal incident may involve multiple offenses - of the 7,106 incidents in 2017, there were 8,437 specific offenses reported.
1. When broken down by type of offense, what was the largest category? What were most of the hate crimes reported to police considered?
2. according to the FBI, of the 8,437 offenses reported, what percentage were crimes against people and what percentage was crime against property?
3. Of the interpersonal offences that too place, most consisted of what type of offence and what was that followed by?
> the single largest category reported to police in 2017 were property offenses (27.6%) and most of the hate crimes reported to the police involved violent offenses.
> Specifically, according to the FBI, of the 8,437 offenses reported, just over 60% were crimes against people, while 36.9% were crimes against property.
> Of those interpersonal offenses, most consisted of intimidation, followed by simple assault.
To understand why some hate crimes are not reported to police, the NCVS asks victims why they did not report their victimizations. The reasons given for not reporting were:
> that many victims handled it privately
referred the matter to a non-law enforcement official
> Almost a quarter of victims, however, simply did not report because they felt that the police wouldn’t be interested or willing to respond / because they felt that it would cause more trouble for them from the perpetrator or friends of the perpetrator.
How does the NCVS define hate crimes?
> incidents in which victims believe the offender selected them for victimization because of one or more of their personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability.
What incidents does the NCVS also include in their definition of hate crime?
> incidents in which the offender perceives the victim as belonging to or associated with a group largely identified by one of these characteristics or perceives the victim as associating with people having certain characteristics.
Before a crime is classified as hate related, corroborating evidence of hate motivation must also be found to have been present at the time of the incident, including at least one of the following:
> The offender used derogatory language.
> The offender left hate symbols.
> The police confirmed that a hate crime had taken place.
Based on the three forms of evidence that classify a crime as hate related, why were the majority of cases believed to be hate related? What percentage was assocaited with this form of evidence compared to the other three?
> the vast majority of cases were believed to be hate crimes because of the use of derogatory language (98.7%).
How many hate crimes occurred in 2015? How many were considered violent crimes and how many were considered property offenses?
> The most recent data available indicate that there were 207,880 hate crimes in 2015, of which 192,020 were violent crimes and 14,160 were property offenses
The most common form of violent hate crimes were what? What followed this one?
> The most common form of violent hate crimes were simple assaults (61.6%), followed by aggravated assault (17.7%).
For property offenses, the most common type of hate crime consisted of:
> thefts
What percentage of of violent hate crimes reported to the NCVS were perpetrated by known offenders? How many were male?
> 55%
> and about 61% of offenders were male.
