However, this is only the first step in addressing the systemic problem of hate crimes against vulnerable communities. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (a division of the DOJ), 259,000 hate crimes occurred each year on average between 2007-2011. In contrast, the FBI recorded only 7,254 hate crimes for 2011. This 35 fold gap in documenting hate crimes is unconscionable.To combat this problem, ICAAD is:
- Submitting shadow reports to the Committees for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) regarding the U.S. government’s failure to document and monitor hate crimes. ICAAD participated as a member of USHRN in civil society consultations for both treaties on May 30, 2013 and February 11, 2013 respectively.
- Researching and identifying trends and gaps in hate crimes statistics over the past decade with the help of graduate student interns from Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Information Systems.
- Publishing a law review article in Berkeley’s Asian American Law Journal (AALJ) on ICAAD’s systems approach to addressing structural discrimination. The journal article focuses on hate crimes in the U.S. as the lens in which to tell the story.
ICAAD would like to recognize the bipartisan support from over 140 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and the recommendations submitted by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and Community Relations Service to the FBI. Furthermore, contributions from the Sikh Coalition, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) played a decisive role in getting the FBI to change its coding policies.
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