The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/hate-crimes/)
FBI Assistant Director Michael McGarrity told Congress 850 cases of violence by white supremacist and similar hate groups are under investigation, but he declared that the First Amendment frustrates any notion of defining such U.S. groups as terrorist organizations.
A panel of experts discussed the intersection of hate crimes and terrorism at the 14th Annual Frank Harry Guggenheim Conference Thursday. Karen Greenberg of Fordham Law School contended that hate crimes have been a part of American politics for a very long time.
The number of hate groups operating across America rose to 1,020 in 2018 as President Trump continued to fan the flames of white resentment over immigration and the country’s changing demographics, according to a new report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In a blunt talk to students and faculty at John Jay College, Gurbir Grewal said state attorneys-general have been critical to the struggle against “harebrained” federal efforts to criminalize immigrants over the past two years. But conservative federal court appointments will make things tougher, he warned.
The majority of hate crime victims last year were targeted because of the offenders’ race, ethnicity, and/or ancestry bias, according to an FBI report released Tuesday
Some hate crimes are so heinous there’s no debate about whether they should be prosecuted. But the law isn’t always so clear-cut for police. Oregon is a good example.
No, argues the founding director of the John Jay College Center on Terrorism. The FBI definition of terrorism is already “slippery,” and stretching the definition further might threaten civil liberties, he writes.
Despite claims by law enforcement that people who are most susceptible to hate crimes are “hard to reach” populations, a UK study finds that victims would report incidents to officers if they didn’t feel barriers were insurmountable.
The state joins California in banning the use of a rare criminal defense that uses a victim’s sexual orientation as justification for a violent crime. Similar legislative measures will be introduced in other states in 2018.
After a year of attempting to quantify hate crimes in America, ProPublica says it has found a muddled and haphazard system for reporting the crimes that desperately needs a data makeover.