Dec 03, 2004  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

The number of hate crimes in the United States increased by 27 cases in 2003 and sexual orientation became the second largest category of single-bias hate crimes, according to new statistics released by the FBI last week.

Before 2003, religious bias crimes were more common than crimes motivated by sexual orientation. Both categories trail race-related bias crimes by large margins, according to the FBI’s “Hate Crime Statistics 2003.”

The number of hate crimes in the District more than doubled from 14 in 2002 to 31 in 2003. Of those, 17 were hate crimes committed against gay men or lesbians.

Sergeant Brett Parson, of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay & Lesbian Liaison Unit, said the increase of reported hate crimes indicated that police training programs were paying off.

“We should not be running around thinking the sky is falling because of the increase of hate crimes in D.C.,” he said. “We should be saying, ‘It’s about damn time.’”

“It proves that we are doing something right. We are training our police officers better, and we are building stronger relationships with the citizens of the gay community, so that they trust us and feel safe coming to us and saying, ‘We’ve been victimized.’”

According to the FBI, victims of sexual orientation bias crimes account for 16.4 percent of all hate crime victims of single-bias incidents within the past year nationwide. Sexual orientation is second to targets of racial prejudice (52.3 percent), and is followed closely by victims of religion-based bias (16.3 percent), ethnicity/national origin bias (14.6 percent) and disability bias (0.5 percent).

Of the 7,489 reported hate crime incidents, 1,430 single-bias offenses were based on sexual-orientation bias. Of those, 61.6 percent were reported as anti-male homosexual bias; 15.4 percent reported as anti-female homosexual bias; 21.3 percent reported as anti-homosexual bias and did not specify gender; 0.6 percent reported as anti-bisexual bias; 1 percent were reported as anti-heterosexual bias.

J. Smith, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said the new reports are alarming.

“These statistics are a small window of what’s happening out there,” Smith said. “The current law needs to be strengthened as soon as possible, and law enforcement need to have tools to prevent these crimes — what they have right now is inadequate.”

Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistic Act in 1990, which requires attorneys general nationwide to compile data about bias crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity and disability, as of 1994.

The list, however, does not include a category for bias crimes motivated by gender identity or expression.

“The FBI doesn’t acknowledge transgender people, that is not a category that they even consider when they look at statistics, so in order to look at transgender numbers, you have to look at other factors like sexual orientation, gender, personal appearance,” Parson said.

“There is just no protection for transgender people. It’s not right, but that’s a fact.”

Maryvictoria Pyne, chief of the communications unit for the FBI, described the reports as a “statistical data collection effort only” and said local authorities must decide how to classify hate crimes committed against transgendered people.

“We follow the federal guidelines with regard to the hate crime data collection, so these five area biases [race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin and disability] are covered under law. It’s up to the reporting agency, depending on how they would take the report and how they would classify [hate crimes against transgendered people].”

Data collection is voluntary
The FBI data is collected based on a voluntary program. Pyne said that while the FBI prefers participation of all local authorities, it is not enforced.

“To comply with the Hate Crimes Statistic Act, the FBI collects data from law enforcement agencies that volunteer it,” Pyne said. “In spite of the fact that it’s volunteered, we have 1,700 agencies contributing, so obviously law enforcement sees the need to collect crimes statistics.

“We would we like more participation, I don’t think there’s a program in the country that doesn’t,” she said.

Seventeen of the 31 hate crimes reported in D.C., which has two participating agencies covering a total 563,384 people, were listed under sexual orientation.

“When we see an increase like this, we should not jump to the conclusion that it is a bad thing,” Parson reiterated.

“If you look around at the ...