Sunday, September 25, 2005
Interesting not only for what it says about anti-Semitism, but also for what it says about the difficulty of prosecuting Hate Crimes. Generally speaking, I'm against a separate class of laws and punishments for "Hate Crimes," but in favor of tracking the statistics as to the natural or special character of crimes -- for instance, noting when an incidence of vandalism or violence is motivated by racial factors, even if they are not necessarily punished differently...something that could be left up to judge or jury.
The Jewish Advocate: Incidence of hate crimes against Jews up 35 percent
Local police departments filed 58 incident reports in which Jews were subjected to possible hate crimes in 2004 – a victimization rate 35 percent higher than the rate in 2003, making Jews, after blacks, the most frequently victimized minority group in Massachusetts, data collected by the state Executive Office of Public Safety show. At the same time, the State Police office received the smallest number of hate-crime incident reports from police departments from around the state in the last five years. Additionally, Boston’s nationally acclaimed Community Disorders Unit in 2004 investigated fewer hate crime cases than it has since 1995, the first year for which records were available.
For detectives, prosecutors and officials at the Anti-Defamation League contacted by the Advocate, the fact that anti-Semitic incidents have rarely resulted in hate crime charges, let alone verdicts, against perpetrators reflects the complex nature of proving hate crimes in court...
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