Keeping Track of Hate

Hate crimes--acts of vandalism, assault or murder triggered by race, ethnicity or sexual preference--may be rising dramatically. Civil rights activists certainly think so, but evidence is hard to come by. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, pending before the Senate, would help clarify the picture and provide a data base for national policies designed to curb hate crimes.

The act calls on the Justice Department to collect data for five years on crimes motivated by race, religion, ethnicity or homosexuality. Murders, assaults, arson, robberies, thefts, threats, and acts of vandalism or trespass would be counted. The comprehensive tabulation would provide a broader and more complete picture of hate-related incidents and allow a more accurate comparison from region to region and year to year.

The legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), does not describe how the data would be collected, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation already gathers statistics on a variety of crimes from nearly 16,000 law-enforcement agencies, and hate crimes could simply be added to that annual Uniform Crime Report.

Simon is a liberal Democrat and Hatch a conservative Republican and their bill has attracted support from more than 40 senators, President Bush and Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh. But it has detractors. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) derailed a similar measure last year because the reporting requirements included crimes against homosexual men and women. Gay-bashing crimes should be included in the bill.

Hate complicates crime. A swastika spray-painted on the wall of a synagogue is more than graffiti. A cross-burning at the home of a black family is more than simple arson. These crimes trigger a greater fear, because the victims know that such attacks are not random.

Hate crimes range from vandalism to murder. The FBI, for example, is investigating racial motivation in the letter bombs that killed a federal judge in Birmingham, Ala., and an alderman in Savannah, Ga., earlier this month. A young black man in search of a used car was killed last summer in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn because white youths thought he was there to see a neighborhood girl.

State investigators believe the deranged gunman who shot five children to death in a Stockton schoolyard earlier this year was at least partly motivated by the fact that they were of Asian descent. Is this what America is coming to? The country needs to make an organized effort to find out.