Armed with newly released hate-crime statistics for 1993, Jewish groups are prepared to press Congress and the Clinton administration to fund educational programs geared to reducing incidents of violence motivated by prejudice.
According to preliminary figures released simultaneously Tuesday in Germany by FBI Director Louis Freeh and at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, there were 7,684 hate crimes committed in the United States last year, including 1,054 incidents targeting Jews.
According to observers, these figures confirm the need for educational programs to decrease violence by reducing prejudice.
“In order to address the problem of hate crimes, Congress must know the magnitude of the problem and can now begin to get at the root of the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington office.
“Once you recognize that there are hate crimes, you can begin to teach kids not to engage in the acts at all,” Lieberman said.
Through grant and educational programs spelled out in the education bill, known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress is “taking the next step from the administrative task of reporting hate crimes to making the clear connection between reducing prejudice and preventing violence through education,” Lieberman said.
In its version of the bill passed three months ago, the House of Representatives included model programs to combat prejudice and hate.
The Senate bill, which was expected to pass as early as this week, includes similar language.
Although the House version does not fund the grant and education programs, Education Secretary Richard Riley has voiced his support for the program and has indicated his department will find the resources to award grants to local educational and community groups to develop training programs and courses to fight prejudice.
SPIELBERG TESTIFIES
Steven Spielberg, the award-winning director of “Schindler’s List,” testified in favor of the bill at the Senate hearing Tuesday.
“What’s missing I believe is a moral force, a humane ability to tell the difference between right and wrong,” said Spielberg, who asked the members of Congress to pressure states to teach tolerance courses in high schools.
According to the FBI report, hate crimes attacking Jews accounted for 89 percent of the 1,189 reported incidents based on religious bias in 1993.
Among other religious groups, 30 anti-Catholic, 25 anti-Protestant and 11 anti-Islamic incidents were reported by the 6,850 participating law enforcement agencies in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
Congress passed legislation in 1990 requiring the FBI to collect data on hate crimes.
Based on information from participating agencies, the FBI reported 4,558 incidents of hate crimes in 1991 and 7,442 in 1992.
Most of the incidents reported in 1993 — 62 percent — were motivated by racial bias. Eighteen percent were motivated by religious bias and 12 percent were based on bias against homosexuals.
Seventy percent of the reported offenses were crimes against people. These crimes included murders, rape, aggravated assault and intimidation, which was the most frequently reported hate crime at 35 percent of the total offenses, according to the report.
Neither Congress nor the FBI can require law enforcement agencies to compile the data. This year’s 6,850 respondents cover only 56 percent of the U.S. population. Of the jurisdictions that sent data, many reported information spanning six months instead of the full year.
ADL officials says they are planning to meet with police chiefs around the country in an effort to persuade them to begin reporting or to make more complete reports of hate crimes to the FBI.
Meanwhile, Freeh met with German officials in Germany this week to discuss the growing concerns in both countries over hate crimes and racist violence.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said of the meeting, “We see this as an important step which shows the people of Europe a new level of concern and commitment on the part of the United States to combat hate crimes at home and abroad.”
(Contributing to this report was JTA staff intern Michael Shapiro in Washington.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
