By Peter Kirsanow
Thursday, November 14, 2019
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, of which I’m a
member, released a report yesterday entitled “In the Name of Hate: Examining
the Federal Government’s Role in Response to Hate Crimes.” The report appears
to lend credence to the Left’s narrative that the U.S. is enduring a wave of
white supremacist hate crimes spurred by the election of Donald Trump. The
practical effect of the report is to malign supporters of the president as
violent extremists and portray the nation as a whole as intrinsically racist.
The proposed solution, unsurprisingly, is greater federal involvement in local
law enforcement, increased classification of crimes as “hate crimes” subject to
federal prosecution, and curtailment of First Amendment freedoms.
The report is grievously flawed.
As I noted earlier this year when Jussie Smollett
captivated the nation with his valiant tale of fighting two Nigerian white
supremacists without losing hold of his Subway sandwich, the actual statistics
about hate crimes in this country confound the Left’s narrative. Last year we
were told that an increase of 1,000 reported hate crimes in 2017 versus 2016
was evidence of a “wave of hate” sweeping the country. But as journalist Robby
Soave pointed out at the Commission’s hearing, the increase is likely due to
the fact that 1,000 more law enforcement agencies began reporting hate crimes
to the FBI in 2017. If each new agency reported just one hate crime, that alone
would account for the increase. Furthermore, even the 1,000 year-over-year
increase brought the number of hate crimes to 7,175 — fewer than in 2006, when
there were 7,624 hate crimes. In fact, earlier this week the FBI released the
2018 hate crimes statistics, revealing that there were 7,120 hate crimes — 55
fewer than in 2017, and (despite far more law enforcement agencies now
reporting) approximately 500 fewer than in 2006.
Perhaps more importantly, the report fails to answer one
simple question: Will designating a crime a “hate crime” prevent or reduce the
incidence of such crimes? I asked that question of the witnesses at the
Commission’s briefing on the topic, and was greeted with silence.
This, however, wasn’t quite as revealing as when I asked
the witnesses what they made of the fact that blacks are far more likely to
commit hate crimes than are whites. According to FBI statistics, in 2018,
blacks, who are 13.4 percent of the overall population, accounted for 18.8
percent of hate-crime perpetrators. Whites, who are 76.5 percent of the
population, accounted for 41.3 percent of hate-crime perpetrators. When I asked
the witnesses whether we should, therefore, direct greater hate-crime-prevention
efforts toward the black community, many of them stared at me with expressions
ranging from confusion to hostility, reemphasizing that the real problem is
that white males feel threatened, and that’s the real reason for the (phantom) increase
in hate crimes.
Without diminishing hate (or any other) crimes,
perspective is in order. Hate crimes are a vanishingly small portion of total
crime. For example, a total of 1,231,566 murders, rapes, aggravated assaults,
and robberies were committed in 2015. 821, or .00067 percent, were classified
as hate crimes. That’s for an entire year. An average of 550 Americans are
struck by lightning per year, most of which strikes occur during a 6–7 month
period. Americans are about as likely to be a victim of a violent hate crime as
being struck by the proverbial bolt of lightning.
To sum up: There’s no wave of hate crimes in “Trump’s
America,” whites are disproportionately less likely to commit hate crimes, and
there’s no evidence that adopting every single recommendation in the Commission
report would do anything to prevent even one hate crime.
Other than that, it’s a great report.
No comments:
Post a Comment