New Report: GLBT Hate Crimes Comparable to Other Targeted Groups
Cross posted at Replace the lies With Truth
A new report released today shows that baised related crimes motivated by the individual’s perceieved sexual orientation are just as comparable to other groups who are already protected by Federal hate crime protections.
RSS 13. June 2007 (15:08)A new report released by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School shows that crime rates against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are comparable to other groups already covered by federal hate crime laws. The “Comparison of Hate Crime Rates across Protected and Unprotected Groups” shows that on average, 13 in 100,000 gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals per year report being the victim of a hate crime, compared to 8 in 100,000 African Americans, 12 in 100,000 Muslim-Americans and 15 in 100,000 Jewish-Americans.
“Often, people try to pass off [the lack of legal protection for gays] as ‘Oh, it’s not as big a problem as race-based hate crimes,’” says Rebecca Stotzer, a research fellow at the Williams Institute. “But when you actually look at the rates and you think of it as a risk per person, you can see that the numbers are actually much more even between groups that are protected versus those that are not.”
The new report was based on a 2004 study by Williams Institute Faculty Chair William Rubenstein, but current hate-crimes legislation before Congress and the availability of more data prompted an update to the report. The U.S. Senate is presently considering the Matthew Shepard Act which would extend legal protections to the LGBT community; an identical bill passed the House of Representatives last month. The bill proposes expanding current federal hate crime laws to include actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability. Current law only defines race, color, religion and national origin as protected categories.
“This report’s findings provide a new perspective that should inform policymakers who are deciding whether to include hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity in federal hate crime laws,” noted M. V. Lee Badgett, research director of the Williams Institute. “The numbers show that hate crimes remain a serious problem for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.” (Padraic Wheeler, The Advocate)
Filed under: Cross-Posted, Hate Crime Laws
