Combating Hate: Hate Crimes Law

ADL Urges FBI to Begin Collecting Hate Crimes Data on New Categories

The Anti-Defamation League and other organizations, working to improve the federal response to hate violence, wrote a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning the implementation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Under the Act, the Attorney General is required to collect data on new categories on hate crime – crimes committed because of gender and gender identity, and crimes committed by and against juveniles.

In a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, the coalition urged the Bureau to begin collecting Hate Crimes Statistics Act data under the new law by July 2010 – and offered coalition members’ time and resources to ensure the smartest, most comprehensive implementation possible.

Read the full text of the letter.