The number of hate groups in the U.S. in 2016 doubled for the second consecutive year, reaching an almost historic high, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual census of hate groups and other extremist organizations. The SPLC points to Donald Trump’s rise to power as the main culprit.

“Trump’s run for office electrified the radical right, which saw in him a champion of the idea that America is fundamentally a white man’s country,” said the SPLC.

Trump’s way of talking about immigrants; the selection of openly racist, anti-LGBT, and anti-Muslim appointees for his cabinet; the tweeting of inaccurate facts; and his threats to ban Muslim immigration are all contributing factors, says the SPLC.

According to the nonprofit civil rights organization, the radical right was more successful in entering the political mainstream last year than it has been in almost 50 years. In 2016 there were 917 documented hate groups, which is only about 100 fewer than the all-time high of 1,018 that was recorded in 2011. Unsurprisingly, most of the hate groups created were specifically anti-Muslim–from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year, a 197 percent increase.

The most dramatic growth in the number of hate groups was the near-tripling of anti-Muslim hate groups: from 34 in 2015 to 101 last year pic.twitter.com/4NKwfbHW3h

— SPLC (@splcenter) February 15, 2017

Immediately after the election there was also a surge in hate crimes; 1,094 incidents were reported in the first 34 days of the Trump Administration. Approximately 37 percent of those incidents directly referenced either Donald Trump, his campaign slogans, or his remarks about sexual assault. Noticeably, the largest share of Trump-related incidents by far were anti-woman at 82 percent.

Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told NBC News that hate groups have been on a steady rise since 2014. According to Beirich, it’s easy nowadays to find the groups thanks to the internet, and the fact that they want to spread their message.

On the topic of Trump’s immigration ban, Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “What used to be a fringe, extremist ideology of anti-Muslim ideology has now moved from the fringe of society to the center of powers in the White House.”

“With a president whose policies reflect the values of white nationalists, extremists think they finally have a voice in the White House” pic.twitter.com/Sm1IrZTDXO

— SPLC (@splcenter) February 15, 2017

The survey also found that schools were also negatively affected by the campaign. After the election, the group’s researchers interviewed 10,000 educators and found that eighty percent said they had noticed more fear and anxiety among their students, particularly immigrants, Muslims, and African Americans. Many teachers reported that students used slurs, derogatory language and extremist symbols in school as well.

Only time will tell what the long term effects of Trump’s politics and presidency will be, but the short term ones are already proving to be quite scary.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Anti-Muslim Hate Groups Increased By 197 Percent Last Year appeared first on Law Street.

Hate crimes and anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic vandalism have surged in libraries lately. Authorities say that they have rarely seen anything like this–vandalism specifically targeting libraries, employees, and books. At a public library in Evanston, Illinois, a librarian discovered that someone had written “bullsh*t hatred cover to cover” inside the cover of a copy of the book “The Koran for Dummies.” They had also drawn a swastika and written a derogatory comment about the Prophet Muhammed.

It turned out that at least six more books were vandalized in a similar way. But it would be very difficult to figure out who did it—any damage done while the books were out on loan would have been discovered and reported on their return, but as that didn’t happen, someone must have vandalized them while in the library. Though the library does have some security cameras, they don’t cover the whole place and nothing suspicious was found on the footage.

In a show of ignorance, Quran and Islam-themed books are defaced at library in Evanston, Illinois. https://t.co/aVGOwVGevN

— Voto Latino (@votolatino) November 27, 2016

According to the American Library Association, there has been an increase in harassment and vandalism at libraries over the past month. At the University of New Mexico, a man approached a young woman who was studying in the library and tried to pull off her hijab. And administrators also found swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of Reed College in Portland.

These crimes are unusual for libraries–they’re supposed to be peaceful places for education and discussion. The ALA is now starting to keep track of every xenophobic incident that is reported. “We hope to track the details, locations and frequency, the better to stay on top of it, develop training or webinars, and support our members,” said James LaRue from the ALA.

This uptick coincides with the 2016 election, which was divisive to say the least. According to several hate crime monitors, verbal and physical abuse aimed at minorities in schools, mosques, and other public places have increased dramatically since the election. A November report from the FBI supports that narrative, showing 5,818 documented hate crimes in 2015. That was a rise of 6 percent compared to the year before, and included assaults, bombings, threats, and property destruction against minorities, women, LGBT individuals, and others. (It’s important to note as well that hate crimes are notoriously underreported.)

The largest increase was in the rise of hate crimes against American Muslims. There were 257 reported cases of assault, or attacks on mosques in 2015, which marks a rise of 67 percent from 2014. That is a high that hasn’t been seen since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. “We need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our communities and how to stop it,” said FBI director James Comey to the New York Times.

But some supporters of Donald Trump say that they have also been victimized, claiming that they also need a “safe space” where they can express their opinions. Maybe the best solution would be for the opposing sides to communicate more openly, to try to understand each other’s point of view.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Libraries Report Surges in Hate Crimes and Xenophobic Vandalism appeared first on Law Street.

The year 2015 will be marked by many advances for the transgender community, both in the media (hello Caitlyn Jenner) and in legislatures across the United States and the world. All in all, 2015 was a year when transgender rights came further into the forefront of our daily lives and vocabulary. But there was a dark side to 2015 as well. Somehow, even though trans rights were gaining ground, it was still the year with the most trans murders on record. Read on to learn about the transgender murder crisis in 2015.

Why Are Trans People Getting Murdered?

Many of the trans people who were murdered in 2015 were victims of hate crimes. Even worse, the majority were perpetrated against transgender women of color.

Hate crimes, specifically those against people identifying with a certain gender, have occurred for years. But these crimes came into the spotlight in 2009 when Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act, which added gender identity to the list of possible motivations for hate crimes. The act also requires the FBI to track statistics on gender identity-motivated hate crimes, but those statistics rely on voluntary reporting from law enforcement agencies and many believe that they are grossly underestimated. These crimes may be undercounted because police officers may not report the murders of trans people as hate crimes–or treat these murders like hate crimes–because their gender is often misidentified.

Who are the victims?

Some of the victims, such as Mercedes Williamson and Keyshia Blige, were killed by strangers in the typical sense of a hate crime–people who didn’t want someone different, or outside of their norm, in their community. There is also a subset of these murders that were committed by loved ones. Around half of the transgender murders in 2015 were committed by people who knew their victims. Two examples include Yazmin Vash Payne, who was killed by her boyfriend after an argument, and Bri Golec, who was stabbed to death by her father.

How Many Trans Murders Were There in 2015?

According to the Human Rights campaign, there were at least 21 murders specifically of trans individuals in the United States in the first 10 months of 2015. But these are only the murders that were reported and identified by that group, and only includes part of the year. Other counts put that statistic higher, but the fact of the matter is that based on the available data, we do not know how many trans murders occured. Even then, the 21 identified by the Human Rights campaign marks a notable increase from previous years. In 2013, there were at least 19 murders of trans people and in 2014, there were at least 13.

The true number is almost certainly higher. There have been many articles in the last couple of months detailing the attacks and profiling the victims of these attacks, which flips the normal crime story on its head (since most crime stories talk only about the perpetrator rather than the victims). These profiles and articles were mainly released before November 20, which is the Transgender Day of Remembrance in the United States. There were also protests surrounding the Day of Remembrance where people lay in the streets, feigning death in order to draw attention to this seemingly invisible problem.

Official hate crime statistics from the FBI for the 2015 calendar year won’t be released until later in the year, but that only includes incidents identified as hate crimes and are widely regarded as an undercount of the actual number.

Why the FBI Stats are Lacking

According to the hate crime statistics released by the FBI last November for the 2014 calendar year, there were only 109 gender-identity motivated hate crimes, of which only 23 fit into the FBI’s violent crime category. However, the FBI’s hate crime numbers are thought to be considerably lower than the actual number of offenses. This is because the statistics are voluntarily submitted by law enforcement agencies, many of which reported zero hate crimes in 2014. The Human Rights Campaign even identified crimes that should have been considered hate crimes but were not appropriately reported. In fact, the FBI’s 2014 statistics indicate that of the 4,048 total hate crimes classified as “crimes against persons,” only four were murders, and that includes all potential bias motivations, not just gender identity.

While each jurisdiction has its own reasons for the differing data submissions to the FBI, problems with the statistics could be due to the fact that these crimes may look like accidents. Also, murders aren’t typically considered hate crimes when they are committed by a family member, friend, or partner. Police may also have trouble identifying victims as transgender in the first place, making it harder for data to be accurately gathered–many of the victims identified by the Human Rights Campaign weren’t identified as transgender by the police or media. For these reasons, among others, these murders aren’t being thought of or investigated as hate crimes and are not being reported to the FBI as such.

There is little that the FBI can do about this–it relies entirely on information provided by law enforcement across the country. So it doesn’t matter how many protests take place–as long as law enforcement doesn’t consider these murders to be hate crimes, they will not be included in the FBI’s statistical reports. However, this also provides a glimmer of hope for the trans and LGBTQ community at large. The number of crimes that are classified as hate crimes is getting larger each year, including the number of hate crimes motivated by a person’s gender identity. In fact, 2014’s number is triple the amount of reported hate crimes motivated by gender identity in 2013. The rate of murders against transgender people may not change that much from year-to-year, instead, they may be getting reported more regularly. Therefore, there is hope that the statistics that the FBI releases may be much closer to accurate in the future.

What Can Be Done?

There are several things that can be done to decrease the number of transgender murders in the future. The first is already underway–the FBI has begun keeping track of statistics for hate crimes involving gender identity. The FBI only started gathering statistics on gender identity motivated hate crimes five years ago. There is a lot of room for growth in how the FBI gathers the information for these statistics, but improvement has so far been made each year. Hopefully, these hate crime statistics will give the country–including law enforcement and legislators–an idea of what is happening in the United States and what else needs to be done to protect transgender people. Congress recently created a Transgender Equality Task Force to help identify issues that transgender people face, which according to advocates should include tracking incidents of violence.

Allies and education are other key ways to prevent the murders of transgender people in the future. When any marginalized group of people has allies on their side, it is easier to fight back. Allies, in this case, are people who do not identify as transgender but who support the causes important to transgender people, such as safe spaces and the legal right to be recognized as an individual’s identified gender. Education about what it is like to be transgender is another small thing that can go a long way. Both trans people and allies can work to educate people throughout the country, hopefully helping develop a broader sense of understanding of what it is like to be transgender and what kinds of rights transgender people are still fighting for.

A Look at the Numbers

There is some good news: trans support in the United States is increasing. In April 2015, the Human Rights Campaign noted that the number of people who say they know a transgender person is up 5 percent from the previous year, and 66 percent of those people look favorably on their transgender acquaintances. The percentage of people who were polled by YouGov as saying that they believe being transgender is immoral is down to 31 percent. While it’s still unclear what the actual transgender population is in the United States–FiveThirtyEight postulates that many of the people who claim to not know any transgender people likely do–each person’s choice on how broadly to share their personal life differs.

All of these statistics show a changing tide in the fight for transgender rights, and also show that younger generations are even more likely to support transgender rights and fight for an end to violence against the trans population.

Conclusion

In 2015, there were at least 21 transgender women who were the victims of murders across the United States. 2015 also marked the highest number of murders against transgender people on record. These murders were committed by both strangers and loved ones of the victims, and they have been classified as hate crimes by activists and by the people who were close to the victims. But until law enforcement consistently reports on the set of criteria that would classify transgender murders as hate crimes, the statistics that the FBI is required to release each year will fall short of being accurate. While we do not yet have reliable statistics about murders and hate crimes against transgender people, as awareness increases that will likely improve. While there are many ways to support transgender people–including activism–the most effective way to shrink the number of murders in the future is to compile and release accurate statistics that would show these crimes for what they are. Until then, these sad and gruesome crimes will continue to occur, and transgender people will continue to be victimized.

Resources

Primary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: FBI Releases 2014 Hate Crimes Statistics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 Brochure

Additional

The New York Times: Obama Calls for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth

Vanity Fair: Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story

Rolling Stone: The 5 Best and Worst Trans Moments of 2015

Slate: Five Things Trans People Teach Us All About Ourselves

Huffington Post: Lives Guided By Fear: In Honor of the Transgender Day of Remembrance

Human Rights Campaign: Addressing Anti-Transgender Violence: Exploring Realities, Challenges, and Solutions for Policymakers and Community Advocates

Huffington Post: What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to the Trans Community?

Broadly: ‘He’s Not Done Killing Her’: Why So Many Trans Women Were Murdered in 2015

Broadly: A Crisis of Violence: Transgender Murders Increased 84% This Year

Vice: Trans Women of Color Face an Epidemic of Violence and Murder

Fusion: 20 Trans People Were Murdered This Year. This is What Happened.

Mother Jones: It’s Incredibly Scary to Be a Transgender Woman of Color Right Now

Time: Why Transgender People Are Being Murdered at a Historic Rate

Rolling Stone: More Trans People Have Been Killed in 2015 Than Ever Before

Crime Museum: History of Hate Crime

The Williams Institute: Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults

USA Today: Transgender People Face an Alarmingly High Risk of Suicide

Think Progress: As 2015 Sees a Record Number of Documented Transgender Murders, a Glimmer of Hope

Human Rights Campaign: Survey Shows Striking Increase in Americans Who Know and Support Transgender People

YouGov: One-third Think it is Morally Wrong to be Transgender

FiveThirtyEight: Most Americans Say They Don’t Know a Transgender Person – But Many of Them Probably Do

Huffington Post: The Kids Are All Right with Transgender Rights

Amanda Gernentz Hanson

Amanda Gernentz Hanson is a Minnesota native living in Austin, Texas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Hope College and a Master’s degree in Technical Communication from Minnesota State University, where her final project discussed intellectual property issues in freelancing and blogging. Amanda is an instructional designer full time, a freelance writer part time, and a nerd always. Contact Amanda at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Transgender Murder Crisis: Why Were There So Many Killings in 2015? appeared first on Law Street.

Though homelessness is not recognized as a protected class under the Hate Crime Prevention Act (HCPA), the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) has been tracking what it considers to be hate crimes for 15 years now. The coalition has documented more than 1,437 crimes against homeless people committed by housed individuals since 1999.

The FBI defines a hate crime as any “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” The NCH adamantly believes that targeting individuals solely because they lack a place to call home is just as serious as targeting them because of their ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.

“There is a very high prevalence of violence against homeless people. They are sought out and targeted because of who they are, and folks are being injured and attacked in large numbers,” Jerry Jones, executive director of the NCH, explained in a phone interview.

In fact, while there have only been 132 homicides in the last 15 years that qualify as hate crimes, the number of homeless related homicides is almost three times as many, totaling 375 deaths since 1999.

These attacks are believed to be motivated by the housed perpetrators’ bias against homeless people. Jones explained that the perpetrators of these crimes “view homeless people as an easy target since they’re living out on the streets,” adding, “they seem to be guided by a twisted rationale that no one will care if they get  hurt.”

With 610,042 people found homeless on any given night across the United States, and with attacks occurring in 47 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, this is quickly becoming a problem that can no longer be ignored.

Who’s Keeping Track?

One of the most disturbing elements of these crimes is the fact that they are not being recorded. No one aside from the NCH tracks the victims of this particular crime, which is primarily the reason why the Coalition is trying to amend the HCPA to include homelessness as a protected class.

“It’s part of our mission to highlight these [violent] acts,” Jones said of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “It’s an issue that we’ve dedicated a lot of time and effort to, but the government has more resources.”

If homelessness were to become a federally recognized protected class, it would require the FBI to track crimes against the homeless the same way that it tracks crimes against other protected classes. It would also show that the government acknowledges not only that there is a problem, but also the fact that these people are worth protecting.

While the NCH publishes annual reports that provide a vivid account of the crimes committed against the homeless, it does not have the resources that the federal government has at its disposal. A complete and accurate count of these crimes will not be possible until the federal government takes over the data collection process.

This is a problem because until we know the extent of the issue, fixing it is relatively impossible. From the data compiled by the NCH it is clear that homeless people frequently suffer from beatings, rape, murders, and even being lit on fire at the hands of housed perpetrators. But the question remains: is this enough to constitute the creation of a new protected class under the HCPA?

The Violence Against the Homeless Accountability Act

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson seems to think so, introducing the Violence Against the Homeless Accountability Act (VAHA) last year. In a press release she states that “before we can solve the problem, we must understand the problem,” arguing that such legislation is needed to send the message that crimes against the homeless will not be forgotten or ignored.

Johnson is not alone in this belief either. Several states have taken it upon themselves to individually include homeless people as a protected class under their hate crime statutes. At least 11 states have passed some form of protection for the homeless as of 2012, but until homeless people are protected under federal legislation, the fight is far from over.

The Homeless Accountability Act only has a six percent chance of getting past committee in the House and only a one percent chance of being enacted. This is slightly lower than the average bill, which stems primarily from the fact that it has failed to garner support from Republicans who are opposed to any further expansion of the HCPA.

The Debate

There is a lot of trepidation about expanding the scope of existing hate crime laws as people are fearful that such an expansion will infringe on citizens’ freedom of speech and expression, criminalizing hateful “thoughts” rather than hateful acts (though the HCPA explicitly states it does not limit hateful thoughts or even hateful speech).

Another argument is that since homelessness is not an immutable characteristic like race, it does not warrant the same protection under the HCPA. Others believe that inclusion as a protected class is not necessary because existing laws are strong enough to deal with any discrimination directed toward the homeless.

Though it may be true that homelessness is not an immutable characteristic, the homeless are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, quite literally without a place to call home. They are veterans who served our country, struggling families who have had their homes foreclosed, and fellow citizens who no longer have the means or the mental capacity to support themselves.

They, of all people, deserve extra protection from senseless violence, yet current legislation has proven to be inadequate in protecting them from the violent actions of housed perpetrators. Until the homeless are protected under the federal hate crime statutes, the discriminatory violence they face will only increase and, sadly, continue to be largely ignored.

[The National Coalition for the Homeless’ Annual Report 2013]

—

Nicole Roberts (@NicoleR5901) a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Sebastian via Flicker]

Nicole Roberts

Nicole Roberts a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Crimes Against the Homeless: Who’s Keeping Track? appeared first on Law Street.