NJ Hate-Crime Rate Doesn't Tell Whole Story

(Dec. 15) -- Is New Jersey the hate crime capital of America?

The latest FBI stats on the subject seem to suggest as much. According to the numbers, compiled by the Anti-Defamation League in November, nearly one out of every 10 hate crime incidents reported in the United States in 2008 was from the Garden State. The ADL's data also showed New Jersey had the most incidents of anti-Semitism last year.

Those incidents include a Hasidic Jew who was punched in the face by a teen in Jackson while another took photos on his cell phone camera; two Jewish kids in Lakewood who were confronted by a group yelling "Heil Hitler" and calling them "dirty Jews"; and a swastika made out of blue utility tape that was found on a wall at a Jewish kindergarten playground in New Milford.

But while the old adage is that numbers don't lie, New Jersey officials say the FBI statistics reveal something very different about their state. They claim the reason the state's numbers are so high (second only to much-larger California's) is that it is so unusually committed to monitoring and reporting such offenses, which they refer to as "bias crimes."

"I think the numbers are so skewed because we in New Jersey take this issue so seriously," said Detective David D'Amico of the Monmouth County prosecutor's office.

All police officers in New Jersey receive two hours of bias crime training while in the police academy, and all 21 county prosecutors have bias crime units. New Jersey was one of the first to mandate the training in 1993, and also led the way in gathering data on bias crimes statewide. The laws are so strict that anytime a police officer becomes aware of a bias motive, he must report it, even if it does not rise to the level of a crime. That's why the state calculates "bias incidents" instead.

"There is no other state that has the level of training that the New Jersey State Police and municipal police agencies have," said Paul Goldenberg, former chief of the New Jersey attorney general's hate crimes unit.

Goldenberg, now executive director of the Secure Community Network, which coordinates security for Jewish facilities and organizations, argues that better trained cops are going to report more crimes, which means the numbers will continue to grow notwithstanding the racial and religious climate.

D'Amico adds that ties formed between law enforcement and several minority groups -- including gays and lesbians, Hispanics and the Jewish community -- have made them more likely to report incidents they would have hidden from law enforcement in the past.

The real problem, the New Jersey officials say, is the underreporting of hate crimes in other states.

Take Mississippi. While New Jersey reported 744 incidents last year, Mississippi reported the fewest, recording just four. Three other states -- Georgia, New Mexico and Wyoming -- are in the single digits as well, while 24 states, plus the District of Columbia, reported less than 100 incidents. (Hawaii does not participate in the reporting efforts.)

"How can you tell me Mississippi only had four cases based on skin color?" D'Amico said. Goldenberg suggested the numbers from those states should be multiplied by 10.

In fact, the information supplied to the FBI can vary wildly from one police district to the next. New York and Los Angeles, the two largest cities in the country, reported more than 250 hate crime incidents each last year; the third largest, Chicago, reported only 31. Miami reported no hate crimes for the fifth year in a row, after reporting eight in 2003 and as many as 16 in 2001.

But lax reporting elsewhere also doesn't make the level of cases in New Jersey any less real, or less troubling.

Etzion Neuer, ADL's New Jersey regional director, says divided populations in many New Jersey schools can create a climate ripe for hate crimes. "When we look at bias incidents, far and away the most likely place a bias incident is to take place is in the schools," he said. "When students don't have an opportunity to learn about each other, when they're ignorant about each other's culture or race, that ignorance breeds contempt."

Add to that decreased budgets for hate crime education in public schools, as well as several hot topics that have enraged the state's population in recent years -- from immigration to the gay marriage bill now being considered in the state legislature -- and it all makes for a potentially volatile dynamic.

D'Amico said he's concerned that the numbers exaggerate the situation in New Jersey. But all the same, the state's law enforcement officials wear the FBI's data as a badge of honor. "When I look at that report, I'm proud instead of dismayed," he said. "I'm proud that we're doing so much. I'm proud that citizens feel comfortable coming to us."