home > recent articles > HATE CRIMES
UMW project shows flaws in classifying hate crimes

See also

United
  Methodist
  Women
  Home Page

Ministries in
  the Midst of
  Hate &
  Violence
 A three-year monitoring project by United Methodist Women (UMW) has uncovered flaws in the reporting or classifying of hate crimes around the country.

Lois Dauway, an executive with the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, said the project revealed a lack of documentation of such crimes, particularly in the seven states that do not have specific hate crime laws.

"I found it surprising that we were able, in some instances, to document hate crime activities when some state attorney generals could not," she told United Methodist News Service after the project summary was released in October.

Completed in August, the Hate Crimes Clipping Project was conducted jointly by the Women's Division, the administrative body for the 1.1-million member UMW, and the Center for Democratic Renewal. UMW volunteers collected newspaper clippings on hate incidents in their home communities and sent them to the Women's Division for processing. The Center for Democratic Renewal then translated the clippings into a national hate crime database.

UMW members also became involved in lobbying for hate crime legislation, according to Dauway. "They were very integral to the passage of the law in Georgia," she said.

Of the 599 news articles in the hate crimes category from 1998-2001, 287 separate incidents were identified across the United States. Combined with incidents in the church burning and international sections, the total was 428 hate crimes identified during that period.

Other articles reflected a "climate," such as white supremacist rallies, that allows hate to exist. Volunteers collected 264 entries for that category.

Articles also were clipped and sent on racial justice issues, such as police brutality and racial profiling, immigration cases, prison issues and the death penalty.

The most widely reported hate crime incidents included the murder of James Byrd, an African American, in Texas in 1999; the hanging of Raynard Johnson, also an African American, in Kokomo, Miss., in 2000; the murder of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man, in Wyoming in 1998; and the arrest of self-described satanist Jay Scott Ballinger, a suspect in more than 30 church arsons, in 1999. The largest number of clippings came from volunteers in California and Florida.

Dauway noted that while the impact of groups inciting hate has diminished, "hate crime activity is on the rise." An explanation, she said, is the proliferation of Web sites that encourage individuals to participate in hate-related acts.

The clipping project will continue, and Dauway said volunteers also are being encouraged to send in articles on anti-Arab or anti-Muslim discrimination or harassment. More information on the clipping project and related programs of the Board of Global Ministries can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org/programs/antihate/ on the agency's Web site

source: United Methodist News Service
October 30, 2001
General Board of Global Ministries
United Methodist Church
475 Riverside Drive - New York, New York 10115
1-800-UMC-GBGM