White House Hosts First Hate Crime Conference (11/9/97)
FBI To Create 'Hate Crime Unit' (6/9/97)
FBI Hate Crime Report Web site
Not In Our Town -- PBS documentary Web site
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White House Targets Hate Crimes
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Nov. 10) -- With reported hate crimes up, President Bill Clinton today convened a White House conference to discuss ways to halt such violence and help victims of it.
"All Americans deserve protection from hate," Clinton told about 350 people who attended. "We should make our current laws tougher to include all hate crimes that cause physical harm."
Clinton also announced measures to let victims of housing-related hate crimes seek monetary damages from the perpetrators, and to assign up to 50 extra FBI agents and prosecutors to work on hate-crime violations.
"Anybody who thinks that in the world of today and tomorrow that he or she can hide from the kind of poison that we see in various places in our country is living in a dream world," Clinton said. "Whether we like it or not, our futures are bound together, and it is time we acted like it."
A heckler interrupted Clinton to shout, "If you murder Vince Foster, it is not a hate crime." Foster was an aide to Clinton who committed suicide in 1993.
"We have the First Amendment, even here," Clinton replied. "But I think the hate's coming from your way, not mine."
Today's conference brought Clinton and top administration officials together with civil-rights activists, police officials, religious leaders and others.
It was aimed at finding ways to stop the kind of violent crime that is motivated by bias against race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or disability. The number of such crimes reported to the FBI has almost doubled since 1991.
In 1996, 8,759 hate crimes were reported. That's an increase from 7,947 in 1995, although no one knows whether there are more crimes or simply better reporting.
Some critics say that once again, Clinton is focusing on a relatively minor problem, considering the 13 million overall crimes reported last year.
Already, police training in some jurisdictions includes the recognition and reporting of hate crimes. And the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld statutes significantly increasing the penalties for such crimes.
During an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Clinton said: "I think the real problem in America is still continuing discrimination and fear and downright misunderstanding."
CNN's Eileen O'Connor contributed to this report.