User:Suasponte2/Hate Crime Statistics Act

Hate Crime Statistics Act - Article Draft
The Hate Crime Statistics Act, 34 U.S.C. § 41305 (HCSA), passed in 1990 and modified in 2009 by the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, requires the Attorney General to collect data on crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The bill was signed into law by George H. W. Bush, and was the first federal statute to "recognize and name gay, lesbian and bisexual people." Since 1992, the Department of Justice through one of its agencies, the FBI, has jointly published an annual report on hate crime statistics.

On November 16, 2020, the FBI released its 2019 Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report with the total number of reported hate crime incidents rising 2.7% to 7,317 (2019) from  7,120 (2018).

HSCA Provisions
The HSCA provides for the Attorney General to acquire data on hate crimes on a yearly basis. The attorney also has the authority to establish how the data will be collected and what manifestations of prejudice are considered a hate crime. The data that is collected under this act is meant to be anonymous and not reveal the identities of victims. The Attorney General is tasked with providing a summary of this information. The HCSA describes hate crimes as crimes affecting several protected groups, including those victimized for their sexual orientation.

HSCA’s 2009 Amendment
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act expanded the powers of the federal government to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, while also amending some provisions of HCSA. The definition of a victim of a hate crime expanded to individuals both actually in and perceived to be in a protected class. Also, the amendment includes specific language on protecting individuals harmed due to their “gender, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity”.

The enacting of Hate Crimes Prevention Act was followed by litigation assessing the validity of Congress to pass the Act. The Department of Justice stated that the Act was enacted through Congress’ commerce clause powers, tasking the government show that the crime affects interstate or foreign commerce. Also, United States v. Beebe (2011) found the Act to be constitutional under the 13th amendment because it was rationally related to Congress' power to eliminate the badges and incidents of slavery.

History of the HCSA
The House of Representatives submitted a Committee Report on assessing the Hate Crime Statistics Act on April 20, 1988. The report stated that at the time, no systematic collection of hate crime data existed and this Act would help both legislators and law enforcement. The Committee Report included a National Justice Institute study that found that African Americans, Hispanics, Southeast Asian, Jews, and LGBT people were the most frequent victims of hate crimes.

Joseph Biden, Jr. served as chairman on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for the bill, 102 S. 797. On June 12, 1988, this committee held a hearing to discuss the proposed Hate Crime Statistics legislation. Dozens of testimonies were submitted, including reports from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which noted the dire situation of how hate crimes harmed marginalized communities and the lack of concrete data surrounding the incidents.

In the bill's hearing for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly stated, "“Hate crimes are of a particularly dangerous nature, because they may be aimed at a single victim, but their effects can permeate a whole community. Solid information on when, where and how often such crimes occur is a first step towards preventing them. Hate crimes motivated by political, religious, and social intolerance need to be distinguished from crimes motivated by other factors. It is so important to document that a cross during is much more than an arson and a swastika painted on a synagogue is more than vandalism.”"

Implementation of the HCSA
On February 8, 1990, the Hate Crime Statistics Act passed the Senate in a 92-4 vote. The Attorney General tasked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to spearhead hate crime data collection through their previously established, Uniformed Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, which already collected national data on crime.

==== FBI’s 2019 Report on "Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders" ====

Notable Scholarship Assessing the HCSA
Studies of the HCSA have assessed the Act's effectiveness at collecting data and the Act's social implications.

Some groups have debated whether the pioneering language of recognizing LGBT identities showed mixed levels of support for LGBT causes. A Harvard Law Review article titled, Developments in the Law: Sexual Orientation and the Law, criticized how early drafts of the act included a provision that, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed, nor shall any funds appropriated to carry out the purpose of the Act be used, to promote or encourage homosexuality." The article stated that the act "explicitly declined to create substantive rights for victims", but also noted that the Act had merits for bringing law enforcement agencies more information to tackle hate crimes. In her article Incendiary Categories: Lesbians/Violence/Law, Ruthann Robson, found that the HCSA was helpful in recognizing sexual orientation based hate crimes. However, Robson noted some of the rhetoric expressed by congresspeople during the bill’s deliberation did not show a support for LGBT protections.

Cynthia Barnett-Ryan & James J. Nolan noted that data collection varied significantly from different states. Their study found that reporting law enforcement agencies in the Northeast and the West had higher levels of participation in reporting hate crimes to the UCR and higher levels of reporting at least one hate crime, while the Midwest and South regions had lower levels in both categories.

In Implementing Hate Crime Legislation Symbolism and Crime Control, James B. Jacobs critiqued that First Amendment protections might stymie the number of incidents classified as a hate crime, and he expressed his doubts that hate crime statutes would be effective.