Video:
Victim Care: Issues for Clergy and Faith-based Counselors
Special Issues of Crime – Lesson Eight
Access via http://grants.denverda.org/FCPEI/index.htm or
Contact Steve Siegel – 720/913-9022

Activity:
In-Class Experience: Divide the class into groups between 5 to 10 students.

The groups are to decide which four of the following ten people should be excluded from a group which is to be allowed into a nuclear fallout shelter during a nuclear attack. The group will need to exist together in the shelter until the danger outside has passed. They will also possibly be re-entering a world that has been destroyed.

- A 36-year-old female physician known to be a racist
- A Hispanic Marine drill instructor
- A biological researcher who is a Black militant
- An Asian biochemist
- An Olympic athlete
- A Hollywood Starlet
- A third year medical student who is a homosexual
- A 16-year-old pregnant high school dropout with a questionable IQ
- A 30-year-old Catholic priest
- A 38-year-old carpenter and fix-it man who served 7 years on drug charges and has been out of jail for 7 months.

Assignment:
Interview a person different from yourself, preferable one who is a member of a group for which you feel prejudice or uneasiness.  Ask about any prejudice they have experienced during their life time and ask them to share what role their faith played.  Write a short paper on the interview experience.

Discussion: How can the crimes of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris – the Columbine High School shooters – be considered “hate crimes?”

Lecture:
The history of the world is rife with examples of hate organized around racial and cultural lines. From the Old Testament conflicts between the Amorites and the Hebrews to the New Testament animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews, on down to the Crusades, the Holocaust, the cleansing of the Balkans, and the terrorist bombings in the United States, human beings have amply demonstrated their ability to hate people simply because of their genetic, cultural, or spiritual identification.

Hate crimes target victims because of a core characteristic of their identity, and, therefore, they are vulnerable to repeated victimizations. Victims may be afraid to associate with others like themselves in public because group visibility could bring more harassment to themselves and their peers. If they speak out, report, or retaliate, they can expect more violence.

In 2002, the FBI received 7,462 reports of hate and bias crime. Of those, almost half were racially motivated, primarily by anti-black prejudice. About 1/5 of the reports were based on religion, primarily anti-Jewish, and about 1/6 of the reports were based on sexual orientation, primarily anti-male homosexual prejudice.ⁱ

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, hundreds of Americans of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent – or simply people with dark skins, beards, turbans, or veils that made them appear to fit the profile of a terrorist – became victims of threats, beatings, and killings. Hate crimes against Muslims reported to the FBI increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, an increase of 1700%,ⁱⁱ but the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which believes it was more likely to receive hate crime information from Muslims than the FBI, says it received more than 700 reports within the first nine weeks following 9/11/01.ⁱⁱⁱ

Definitions:

Legal Definitions
The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 defined hate and bias crimes as those that “manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including, where appropriate, the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage, or vandalism of property.”

In 1992, the federal government expanded the definition of a hate crime to a crime in which “the defendant's conduct was motivated by hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity of another individual or group of individuals."

In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act added disabilities to the list. However, the law to provide federal assistance to states and localities to prosecute these cases covers only victimization based on race, religion, or national origin.

Of the 50 states, 43 have enacted their own hate crime laws. Most of them distinguish between bias-motivated incidents (non-criminal acts) and bias-motivated crimes. State hate crime laws generally cover crimes based on race, religion, and national origin, but fewer include sexual orientation, gender, age, or disability. Of the 43 states with such laws, 20 of them exclude victimization motivated by sexual orientation prejudice.

According to the Office for Victims of Crime:^iv

Perpetrators of hate crimes have convinced themselves that their targeted victims are inferior beings.

Usually teased and taunted as children, these perpetrators feel a mission in life to fight back by making others feel inferior.

Hate crimes are usually committed by groups of offenders so that individual responsibility is diffused. This leaves the victim with no one person to hold accountable.

Hate crimes may result in more serious injury to victims than individual crimes because groups tend to exacerbate the viciousness of the violence.

Hate crime perpetrators also tend to strike when a victim or group of victims is believed to have infringed on the perpetrating group’s “territory,” such as moving into, working in, driving through, or walking into it.

The victim is targeted due to a core characteristic of his or her identity that cannot be changed.

The victim continues to feel vulnerable to additional victimization, no matter where he or she goes.

The victim continues to fear association with his or her own group for fear of further victimization or the victimization of others in the group.

If victims speak out, they fear retaliation from not only the specific offenders but others in the group.

Hate and bias crime perpetrators often target places of worship. These attacks on sacred spiritual symbols affect victims profoundly.

Institutional prejudice on the part of health care providers, mental health practitioners, insurance companies, and the justice system enhance the powerlessness of victims as they attempt to regain control over their lives.

Hate incident and crime victims experience terror, rage, confusion, and powerlessness. They cannot buffer themselves with the belief that they were selected at random. They were not. They were specifically chosen simply for who they are. They can feel even more hopeless if they live in communities where the government does not acknowledge hate components of these incidents.

How Faith Leaders Can Help

Victims

Offenders
Perpetrators of hate crimes share characteristics with many other criminal offenders in that they feel inferior and inadequate and have learned that the only way to feel control in their lives is to render others powerless. Faith leaders must hold the perpetrators of hate crime accountable, including insisting on professional counseling and refusing to testify in court on their behalf.

Role of the Faith Community

Faith communities whose property is vandalized by bias or hate incidents should report it to 1-800-347-HATE, a confidential hotline in the U.S. Department of Justice that monitors these cases. Hate or bias crimes should be reported to the police or the FBI. Other organizations that can help include:

ⁱ Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States, Uniform Crime Reports, 2000. U.S. Department of Justice; Washington, DC, 2001.
ⁱⁱUniform Crime Reports, 2000. U.S. Department of Justice; Washington, DC, 2001.
ⁱⁱⁱFederal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, 2001. U.S. Department of Justice; Washington, D.C, 2002.
^ivOffice for Victims of Crime. National Victim Assistance Academy Text. U.S. Department of Justice; Washington, D.C., 1995.