The House passed by voice vote today a bill requiring the Department of Justice to collect data annually on crimes motivated by hate.
The Hate Crime Statistics Act requires the Attorney General, starting in 1986, to accumulate and publish data “about crimes which manifest racial, ethnic or religious prejudice, including where appropriate, the crimes of homicide, assault, robbery, burglary, theft, arson, vandalism, trespass and threat.”
The Justice Department had objected to the original bill introduced by Rep. Barbara Kennelly (D. Conn.) which required the data to be collected under the FBI’s annual uniform crime report. But it accepted a suggestion by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith that the hate information be collected separately. The bill now goes to the Senate.
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.
