WEBVTT - Understanding Hate Crime Laws 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.276 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:24.316 --> 0:00:27.796 where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:28.356 --> 0:00:32.996 I'm Noah Feldman. Several weeks ago, the nation was shocked 0:00:33.196 --> 0:00:37.036 and horrified to hear about shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, where 0:00:37.156 --> 0:00:40.396 twenty one year old man went to three day spas 0:00:40.516 --> 0:00:44.516 or massage parlors and killed eight people. Six of the 0:00:44.596 --> 0:00:48.676 victims were of Asian origin, and many people are wondering 0:00:49.156 --> 0:00:52.036 if and whether the gunmen will be charged with committing 0:00:52.036 --> 0:00:56.476 a hate crime alongside charges of murder and aggravated assault. 0:00:57.276 --> 0:01:01.276 But hate crime charges are relatively rare and they can 0:01:01.316 --> 0:01:05.636 be challenging to prove in court. In twenty twenty, Georgia 0:01:05.676 --> 0:01:07.876 became one of the last states in the country to 0:01:07.996 --> 0:01:11.756 enact an anti hate crime That in turn raises some 0:01:11.876 --> 0:01:17.396 core questions. Why are hate crimes charges so rare? How 0:01:17.556 --> 0:01:22.476 should and do the police actually investigate and prosecute hate crime? 0:01:23.516 --> 0:01:26.036 What should we do when there are many hate crimes 0:01:26.036 --> 0:01:29.956 that may evade the legal criteria despite appearing on the 0:01:29.996 --> 0:01:34.516 surface and maybe beneath to be racially motivated. All of 0:01:34.516 --> 0:01:37.236 these are questions that connect to the theme of power, 0:01:37.636 --> 0:01:41.876 which is our central theme this year On Deep Background, 0:01:42.356 --> 0:01:45.596 they raise the question of the state's power to react 0:01:46.036 --> 0:01:49.276 to racial and other forms of bias, and of the 0:01:49.316 --> 0:01:53.596 capacity of our society more broadly, to exercise societal power 0:01:54.036 --> 0:01:58.276 over and against the power of hate. Today's guest is 0:01:58.276 --> 0:02:03.116 an expert on precisely these topics. Doctor Jeanine Bell is 0:02:03.156 --> 0:02:07.716 professor of law at Indiana University. She's a nationally recognized 0:02:07.756 --> 0:02:11.356 scholar in the area of pleasing and hate crime. She 0:02:11.396 --> 0:02:15.116 wrote a book called Policing Hatred, Law Enforcement, Civil Rights 0:02:15.156 --> 0:02:18.836 and Hate Crime, and ethnographic investigation of a big city 0:02:19.116 --> 0:02:23.396 police hate crime unit. Today, on Deep Background, she's going 0:02:23.436 --> 0:02:26.436 to talk to us about hate crimes laws, when and 0:02:26.476 --> 0:02:30.076 how they came, about how they can and should be enforced, 0:02:30.676 --> 0:02:34.756 and criticisms of those laws raised by some in the 0:02:34.796 --> 0:02:43.276 advocacy community. Professor Bell, welcome to Deep Background. Ganine, thank 0:02:43.316 --> 0:02:48.156 you so much for being here. Your topic is perennially significant, 0:02:48.876 --> 0:02:52.796 and it's also very significant in the present moment. What 0:02:53.036 --> 0:02:58.116 drew you to this particular subject of expertise and study. 0:02:58.116 --> 0:03:01.036 It's it's importance is unquestioned, and it's more fortunate that 0:03:01.036 --> 0:03:03.836 you are working on it. But what personally for you 0:03:03.876 --> 0:03:09.436 made this your focus. It's interesting, you know, and this 0:03:09.796 --> 0:03:13.036 has a lot to do with my current career as 0:03:13.036 --> 0:03:16.836 a law professor. I was a political science graduate student. 0:03:17.196 --> 0:03:20.196 It was early in nineteen nineties. I was in the 0:03:20.276 --> 0:03:24.316 dentist's office and I picked up Time magazine and they 0:03:24.356 --> 0:03:30.236 had a story about a black tourist visiting Disneyland, I believe, 0:03:30.516 --> 0:03:35.516 who had been set on fire by some whites, and 0:03:35.676 --> 0:03:40.036 they called it a hate crime. I was really surprised, 0:03:40.756 --> 0:03:44.676 you know, I was familiar with acts of racist violence, 0:03:44.716 --> 0:03:48.196 but I'd never heard any notion of hate crime. So 0:03:48.236 --> 0:03:50.876 I decided to look into it, and I looked at 0:03:50.916 --> 0:03:54.476 the literature, all of the literature about this term hate crime. 0:03:54.956 --> 0:04:01.596 It was right between rav in Wisconsin versus Mitchell and 0:04:01.916 --> 0:04:08.876 all of the legal literature. You know, law professor's writings said, Oh, 0:04:08.876 --> 0:04:12.676 this silly. Nobody knows what a hate crime is. You 0:04:12.676 --> 0:04:15.556 can never tell whether something is a hate crime or not. 0:04:15.916 --> 0:04:23.036 And this is still twenty five years later, something that 0:04:23.236 --> 0:04:27.956 is a huge portion of the First Amendment literature. We 0:04:28.036 --> 0:04:32.156 can't figure out whether something is bias motivated. So that's 0:04:32.236 --> 0:04:35.556 why I do this. I wanted to ask you just 0:04:35.596 --> 0:04:39.316 to begin by giving us your working definition of what 0:04:39.516 --> 0:04:42.556 counts as a hate crime or a bias crime from 0:04:42.596 --> 0:04:49.956 your perspective, Okay, hate crimes are crimes motivated by bias 0:04:50.036 --> 0:04:56.956 on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity. 0:04:57.596 --> 0:05:02.356 The precise categories, and it's important that you understand that 0:05:02.396 --> 0:05:09.436 they are categories, not groups. The precise categories vary by stack. Shoot, 0:05:09.836 --> 0:05:13.996 whatever hate crime statute you're looking at, it's mostly federal 0:05:14.036 --> 0:05:18.116 in state, and there are some states, like the state 0:05:18.156 --> 0:05:23.116 I'm in right now, Indiana, that prevent localities from enacting 0:05:24.236 --> 0:05:28.196 their own legislation in the context of criminal law. So 0:05:29.076 --> 0:05:32.716 even if we wish to, and I think that my 0:05:32.916 --> 0:05:37.396 particular city would probably wish to, particularly for the number 0:05:37.436 --> 0:05:40.036 of years that we did not have hate crime legislation, 0:05:40.836 --> 0:05:45.236 enact something, they cannot. They are forbidden by the legislature 0:05:45.316 --> 0:05:49.676 from doing something like that. When did federal or state 0:05:49.716 --> 0:05:55.556 governments start enacting laws that specifically punish hate crimes. In 0:05:55.596 --> 0:06:00.916 the nineteen nineties, most of the statutes were passed. This 0:06:01.236 --> 0:06:06.636 happened after the creation of the nineteen Hate Crime Statistics SECTS, 0:06:06.956 --> 0:06:11.316 which was a federal piece of legislation, So mostly in 0:06:11.356 --> 0:06:16.876 the nineteen nineties before that time, only Connecticut had biased 0:06:16.916 --> 0:06:19.636 crime legislation, and had Connecticut had it for a long time, 0:06:19.756 --> 0:06:22.356 or was it relatively new there as well, mid nineteen eighties. 0:06:22.916 --> 0:06:27.116 So these are all relatively recent in grand historical terms, 0:06:27.596 --> 0:06:29.836 although I guess there's now thirty years, almost thirty years 0:06:29.876 --> 0:06:33.116 of experience with a lot of them. Both yes and no, 0:06:34.076 --> 0:06:37.636 they're similar. Some of them are similar to federal civil 0:06:37.716 --> 0:06:41.956 rights legislation that we've had, you know, for one hundred 0:06:42.036 --> 0:06:47.876 years or so, similar in what sense, similar in targeting 0:06:48.596 --> 0:06:54.956 a particular type of terrorism bias motivated violence, and civil 0:06:55.036 --> 0:07:00.956 rights acts targets motivated violence, but without the categories. The 0:07:00.996 --> 0:07:04.956 innovation of hate crime is the adding in of the 0:07:04.996 --> 0:07:11.476 categories bias on the basis of race, religions, orientation, ethnicity, etc. 0:07:12.716 --> 0:07:16.116 Whereas the Civil Rights Statute said that it's a crime 0:07:16.196 --> 0:07:19.916 to interfere with a person's exercise of his or her 0:07:20.116 --> 0:07:23.276 civil rights, and it just so happened that many people 0:07:23.276 --> 0:07:25.876 who are committing such crimes are doing so on the 0:07:25.916 --> 0:07:32.556 basis of race, or exactly precisely, that is precisely the issue. 0:07:32.756 --> 0:07:34.756 I have a lot of, you know, in the weeds 0:07:34.836 --> 0:07:36.316 questions which will come to it a second but I 0:07:36.396 --> 0:07:38.676 wanted to ask you if at the biggest level, you 0:07:38.756 --> 0:07:43.676 had to say, how successful has this body of legislation been? 0:07:43.756 --> 0:07:45.276 And this is the body of legislation that I think 0:07:45.276 --> 0:07:48.636 you've studied as deeply as anyone living. What's the measure 0:07:48.676 --> 0:07:51.756 of whether laws like this are doing their job? And 0:07:51.796 --> 0:07:54.956 then by whatever measure that is, are they doing their job? 0:07:56.076 --> 0:08:01.636 That's a hard question. It's hard first because this is 0:08:01.876 --> 0:08:08.316 violence that goes largely unpunished, but for the existence of 0:08:08.356 --> 0:08:13.996 these particular killer pieces of legislation. Take cross burning, for instance, 0:08:14.916 --> 0:08:19.636 if someone burns across on my lawn, then there are 0:08:19.916 --> 0:08:26.276 very few criminal statutes that you can use to prosecute them. 0:08:27.796 --> 0:08:33.476 For arson, for example, you need a burned spot, right, 0:08:34.036 --> 0:08:36.396 and a lot of times when someone burns across there 0:08:36.436 --> 0:08:40.076 isn't a burned spot. And there was a famous case 0:08:40.196 --> 0:08:43.796 that I'm sure you have heard of in which the 0:08:43.876 --> 0:08:48.836 perpetrators burned across r A V burned across on the 0:08:48.916 --> 0:08:52.036 lawn of the black family that it integrated the neighborhoods. 0:08:52.716 --> 0:08:56.716 It was actually part of a reign of terror that 0:08:56.836 --> 0:09:02.556 these white supremacists had directed at the family. They'd done 0:09:02.596 --> 0:09:06.636 other things, but they eventually burned across on the lawn 0:09:06.636 --> 0:09:12.356 of the family Middle and ninth, and the prosecutor chose 0:09:12.596 --> 0:09:19.996 to use a hate crime statute because there wasn't really 0:09:20.316 --> 0:09:26.436 much else that wasn't a felony. The adult involved had 0:09:26.516 --> 0:09:31.436 pled to misdemeanors, so they didn't want to charge the 0:09:31.556 --> 0:09:38.116 juvenile involved with a felony, so they chose this hate 0:09:38.116 --> 0:09:41.996 crime statute because there isn't much else you can use 0:09:42.316 --> 0:09:47.676 for cross burning. And is that a typical situation. I mean, 0:09:48.556 --> 0:09:50.756 that's fascinating what you're telling me, because it runs sort 0:09:50.796 --> 0:09:52.956 of counter to my own intuition, which obviously was wrong. 0:09:52.996 --> 0:09:56.076 I mean, my intuition was something like, if it is 0:09:57.196 --> 0:10:01.716 under these statutes, for example, a crime to beat someone 0:10:01.796 --> 0:10:05.316 up on the basis of racial bias, then you could 0:10:05.436 --> 0:10:07.996 charge them already with the beating them beating the person up, 0:10:08.276 --> 0:10:10.276 and then you could a ad and enhanced the sentence 0:10:10.316 --> 0:10:13.156 and add a separate crime the for the bias motivations. 0:10:13.196 --> 0:10:14.916 That was my intuition. But what I hear you saying 0:10:14.956 --> 0:10:18.676 is maybe that intuition is backwards. All right, You've zeroed 0:10:18.676 --> 0:10:22.036 in on something important, but you're still not quite correct. 0:10:22.676 --> 0:10:28.836 Cross burning is unusual in the context of hate crime 0:10:29.636 --> 0:10:34.796 and the sort of lack of overlap with the regular 0:10:34.836 --> 0:10:40.916 criminal law. What about assault bias motivated assault? Assuming it 0:10:41.076 --> 0:10:45.836 is a low level crime, right, meaning I'm not seriously injured. 0:10:46.356 --> 0:10:50.716 The perpetrator beats me up terribly, but you know, I'm 0:10:50.756 --> 0:10:54.756 not really seriously I mean, it's not life threatening, and 0:10:54.956 --> 0:11:00.036 it falls into the category of low level assault. You 0:11:00.076 --> 0:11:04.316 have a couple of problems with that. The first is 0:11:04.916 --> 0:11:09.436 low level crimes are largely not investigated by the police. 0:11:09.796 --> 0:11:15.636 They just don't. Criminologists estimate that nearly eighty percent of 0:11:15.716 --> 0:11:19.956 low level crimes are not investigated by the police. It 0:11:20.036 --> 0:11:25.396 doesn't really matter that this is an assault that targets 0:11:25.436 --> 0:11:29.676 me because of my background. It's still a low level sault, 0:11:29.956 --> 0:11:34.156 and this is not a priority for law enforcement officers. 0:11:34.636 --> 0:11:39.676 So I've just been terrorized and the police are not 0:11:39.796 --> 0:11:43.276 even going to try to figure out who did it, 0:11:43.556 --> 0:11:48.356 let alone try to catch the perpetrator. So I have 0:11:48.516 --> 0:11:55.596 been terrorized, and that same perpetrator could victimize somebody else 0:11:56.276 --> 0:12:00.036 and I could certainly could be victimized again. So one 0:12:00.116 --> 0:12:03.156 of the things that hate crime laws do is they 0:12:03.236 --> 0:12:09.436 create an incentive for law enforcement officers to investigate times 0:12:09.436 --> 0:12:14.236 that they would not. I call that a success because 0:12:14.436 --> 0:12:19.156 we as society have said that these crimes are more damaging, 0:12:19.836 --> 0:12:24.876 so they should be investigated. Help me fill in how 0:12:25.596 --> 0:12:28.756 proof gets constructed by the police and argued by the 0:12:28.836 --> 0:12:33.716 prosecutors and considered by the jury in cases where it's 0:12:33.796 --> 0:12:37.516 not flatly obvious on the surface. So maybe we could 0:12:37.516 --> 0:12:41.076 take as an example the Atlanta shootings that are fresh 0:12:41.076 --> 0:12:45.356 in our minds, where a disproportioned number of the victims 0:12:45.636 --> 0:12:48.476 were Asian American and that immediately led to a national 0:12:48.476 --> 0:12:53.196 discussion about bias and hate against Asian Americans, but in 0:12:53.236 --> 0:12:58.716 which it's also conceivable that the shooters motives were not 0:12:59.116 --> 0:13:05.076 tagged specifically to the ethnic or racial characteristics of the victims, 0:13:05.116 --> 0:13:07.356 which is not to say that they weren't, just to 0:13:07.396 --> 0:13:10.876 say that it seems conceive that there's another explanation. How 0:13:10.916 --> 0:13:13.116 would we go about figuring out the way the system 0:13:13.116 --> 0:13:16.596 would determine whether those crimes, which were crimes of murder 0:13:16.596 --> 0:13:19.156 and we're serious crimes and will be taken seriously in 0:13:19.236 --> 0:13:23.356 terms of identification and enforcement, whether that is in addition 0:13:24.076 --> 0:13:27.196 a bias crime that should be charged as such. Well, 0:13:27.236 --> 0:13:32.156 I'm glad you brought up that case, in particular, if 0:13:32.236 --> 0:13:38.116 that case had been investigated by police officers who knew 0:13:38.436 --> 0:13:44.116 really anything about a hate crime, they say, all right, 0:13:44.396 --> 0:13:50.316 so there's a disproportionate racial group of individuals who may 0:13:50.356 --> 0:13:54.476 have been targeted because of bias. So what do we 0:13:54.516 --> 0:13:58.756 need to do. Well, we need to interview survivors. Let's 0:13:58.956 --> 0:14:05.956 interview survivors about what happened during the crime. The individuals 0:14:05.996 --> 0:14:10.396 who are survivors, their native language was not English. So 0:14:10.476 --> 0:14:15.476 you send in individuals who speak to the grieving survivors, 0:14:15.476 --> 0:14:21.796 grieving and traumatize survivors in their language, right, and you 0:14:21.876 --> 0:14:26.876 gather all the evidence of what happened during the crime. 0:14:27.196 --> 0:14:32.156 So if you look at the for instance, Korean language press, 0:14:33.236 --> 0:14:39.876 which actually did this, unlike law enforcement officers, they have 0:14:39.956 --> 0:14:45.636 a different story to tell about what happened. When the 0:14:45.676 --> 0:14:52.836 perpetrator came to the establishments, perpetrator said things like, and 0:14:53.036 --> 0:14:56.316 you can see this in the press. They said the 0:14:56.356 --> 0:15:02.556 perpetrator was there to kill all Asians. That's evidence of motivation. Right. 0:15:02.836 --> 0:15:08.076 You don't just interview the perpetrator and ask so why'd 0:15:08.076 --> 0:15:14.956 you do this? That's proper hate crime investigation. So you 0:15:15.116 --> 0:15:20.716 look in every location for evidence of motivation, just as 0:15:20.796 --> 0:15:25.076 you might any other crime. Murder for hire, for instance, 0:15:25.516 --> 0:15:29.796 you don't just act ask the perpetrator so, hey, anybody 0:15:29.796 --> 0:15:44.996 pay you to do this, We'll be right back. So 0:15:45.996 --> 0:15:51.356 interviewing survivors, doing so in a culturally and linguistically sensitive 0:15:51.396 --> 0:15:55.396 way is a crucial element. What else should what else 0:15:55.476 --> 0:15:59.516 is best practices for law enforcement to try to gather motive? 0:15:59.556 --> 0:16:03.596 I mean, is profiling a perpetrator, not by interviewing the perpetrator, 0:16:03.676 --> 0:16:06.916 but by talking to people a meaningful undertaking or is 0:16:06.916 --> 0:16:12.516 that more misleading than anything else? It's likely misleading, but 0:16:12.716 --> 0:16:16.156 you do talk to the perpetrators and moreover, one of 0:16:16.196 --> 0:16:19.196 the things that I think the literature is often really 0:16:19.236 --> 0:16:28.116 confused about is how secretive perpetrators are about their motives. 0:16:28.156 --> 0:16:34.316 In these cases. These are often individuals who have an 0:16:34.476 --> 0:16:40.836 ideological commitment to committing the crime. It's not as if 0:16:41.356 --> 0:16:47.236 they want to hide they're bias. And this is something 0:16:47.316 --> 0:16:51.156 that I explored with police when I was writing my 0:16:51.236 --> 0:16:54.476 first book, because I said, so, do you have all 0:16:54.476 --> 0:16:58.236 these perpetrators who you know, don't want to tell you 0:16:58.756 --> 0:17:03.156 that they were biased? And the law enforcement office of no, 0:17:03.596 --> 0:17:07.316 of course not. They're people who are biased, so they 0:17:07.356 --> 0:17:10.516 don't hide it. What's the right way to think about 0:17:10.556 --> 0:17:16.116 it where a perpetrator has let's call them mixed motives, 0:17:16.196 --> 0:17:19.156 and where a prosecutor would have to try to, I guess, 0:17:19.716 --> 0:17:22.996 impose a logic on them for purposes of convincing a 0:17:23.076 --> 0:17:26.596 jury that might not fully be present in the thought 0:17:26.596 --> 0:17:29.956 world of the person who's the perpetrator. So I mean, 0:17:29.996 --> 0:17:33.276 imagine not this case, but imagine a case where you know, 0:17:33.356 --> 0:17:37.076 someone is very a male perpetrator is extremely angry at 0:17:37.156 --> 0:17:42.356 sex workers who are women and are also members of 0:17:42.356 --> 0:17:47.756 a particular racial group, and goes and kills them. And 0:17:48.556 --> 0:17:51.756 you know, where there isn't let's say, contemporaneous evidence that 0:17:51.796 --> 0:17:54.076 he said, you know, I'm here to kill all Asians 0:17:54.116 --> 0:17:58.076 are similar. But where you know, we could infer from 0:17:58.076 --> 0:18:01.116 the circumstances that there seems to be some nature of 0:18:01.156 --> 0:18:05.636 hatred against women, there seems very probably to be racial hatred. 0:18:05.796 --> 0:18:08.476 What's the best way to think about the nature of 0:18:08.556 --> 0:18:13.596 bias where the hate is against some class of people 0:18:13.916 --> 0:18:17.676 that overlaps very much with one of the protected categories 0:18:17.716 --> 0:18:23.756 in the hate crimes legislation. Because it's a legal system, 0:18:23.956 --> 0:18:28.116 you need evidence of bias motivation, and in the mythical 0:18:29.076 --> 0:18:35.196 case that you've created, there is not evidence of bias motivation. 0:18:35.996 --> 0:18:39.356 That wouldn't suffice if someone says, you know, I'm really 0:18:39.396 --> 0:18:41.916 angry at women, that's not I mean, that's not sufficient 0:18:42.796 --> 0:18:49.956 motivated by bias? Right that crime? You know, we require particularization. 0:18:52.236 --> 0:18:58.556 Was that act motivated by your bias? We need evidence? 0:18:58.756 --> 0:19:02.956 And moreover, prosecutors are conservative. Of course, there are cases 0:19:03.036 --> 0:19:08.116 that I see plenty of evidence of bias, statements by 0:19:08.196 --> 0:19:17.156 perpetrators indicating they targeted the people because of their background, 0:19:17.356 --> 0:19:19.916 and prosecutors says, listen, a jury's not going to like this, 0:19:20.556 --> 0:19:25.556 and so doesn't bring charges hate crime charges. Do you 0:19:25.596 --> 0:19:29.036 have a feeling that in general, law enforcement, including prosecutors, 0:19:29.036 --> 0:19:32.316 are doing a reasonable job relative to what they could 0:19:32.316 --> 0:19:34.076 be doing under the law, or do you think they're 0:19:34.676 --> 0:19:38.876 under using the powers that the laws give them. Vastly 0:19:38.996 --> 0:19:43.636 under using the powers that the law gives them. Many 0:19:43.716 --> 0:19:49.156 more cases could be prosecuted as hate crime cases. Prosecutors, however, 0:19:49.236 --> 0:19:53.036 are not the largest problem. The largest problem stems from 0:19:53.436 --> 0:19:59.436 law enforcement. Law enforcement not presenting prosecutors with merely enough 0:19:59.476 --> 0:20:04.996 cases because they're low level crimes that don't get investigated, 0:20:06.676 --> 0:20:10.556 they are not reported to beliefs that it's a problem. 0:20:10.716 --> 0:20:15.676 Eighty six point one percent of law enforcement agencies in 0:20:15.756 --> 0:20:20.876 this country said in twenty nineteen that no hate crimes 0:20:20.876 --> 0:20:25.556 that had occurred in their jurisdiction, and every other figure, 0:20:25.756 --> 0:20:32.196 including victim surveys by the federal government, suggests many more 0:20:32.636 --> 0:20:38.236 hate crimes. I'm kind of shocked by that number. Eighty 0:20:38.236 --> 0:20:43.516 six point one percent of jurisdictions reported no hate crimes. Yeah, 0:20:43.676 --> 0:20:48.516 sounds wildly implausible. Yeah, now, what's the solution to this 0:20:48.596 --> 0:20:51.876 structural problem, not the reporting problem, but the under enforcement problem. 0:20:52.476 --> 0:20:58.556 The solution is actually a solution that doesn't really involve police, 0:20:58.636 --> 0:21:06.876 but rather citizens. You need victims advocacy organizations, say the 0:21:06.996 --> 0:21:13.036 Game Lesbian Anti Violence Project for instance, to start believing 0:21:14.276 --> 0:21:21.996 that police can do something and developing relationships with the police. 0:21:22.596 --> 0:21:27.396 Places where hate crime law enforcement works best are places 0:21:27.436 --> 0:21:31.236 that say, all right, we're going to use the resources 0:21:31.316 --> 0:21:36.196 that we have, which include police departments, to find the perpetrator, 0:21:36.996 --> 0:21:44.956 stop this terrorism directed at individuals, and prosecute the crimes. 0:21:45.036 --> 0:21:51.836 So in places where I saw organize victims advocacy organizations 0:21:51.836 --> 0:21:56.196 that call the police and said, hey, you know, we 0:21:56.276 --> 0:21:59.636 have a person in our community who's been victimized by 0:21:59.676 --> 0:22:02.956 hate crime, and what are you doing about it? Exactly? 0:22:04.036 --> 0:22:12.316 Those police departments are incentivized to investigate crime, create bias units, 0:22:13.356 --> 0:22:18.676 press prosecutors, present cases to prosecutors, because police are the 0:22:18.676 --> 0:22:24.316 ones responsible for investigation. Prosecutors don't do this. Can I 0:22:24.356 --> 0:22:27.956 ask you a slightly bigger picture philosophical question that I 0:22:28.036 --> 0:22:32.156 was really puzzling over. I take it that the thrust 0:22:32.156 --> 0:22:35.756 of your research is that the statutes are pretty good. 0:22:36.316 --> 0:22:39.716 The challenge is really in law enforcement. As you were saying, 0:22:39.716 --> 0:22:42.396 there might be some tools to enable advocacy groups in 0:22:42.396 --> 0:22:44.916 civil society groups to help raise the consciousness of law 0:22:44.956 --> 0:22:48.036 enforcement and put put some political pressure on them to 0:22:48.036 --> 0:22:52.716 create bias units and improve enforcement. And everything that you 0:22:52.796 --> 0:22:56.476 said makes perfect logical sense to me. Then I think 0:22:56.516 --> 0:23:01.836 of what some of my most committed and idealistic students 0:23:02.076 --> 0:23:05.236 in that I teach in my law school are saying 0:23:05.276 --> 0:23:07.396 these days, and I bet that's the same as true 0:23:07.396 --> 0:23:11.436 for some of your students. They're talking about abolition of 0:23:11.476 --> 0:23:17.596 police departments, they're talking about abolition of prisons, and beyond 0:23:17.636 --> 0:23:23.716 those concrete proposals, they're also expressing a deep skepticism of 0:23:23.756 --> 0:23:28.276 the very capacity of police and law enforcement ever to 0:23:29.196 --> 0:23:34.716 overcome systemic racial bias, and in turn, that's causing these 0:23:34.716 --> 0:23:38.716 students to be very skeptical of criminal law as a 0:23:38.756 --> 0:23:45.036 tool for improving equal outcomes in society. And so the 0:23:45.076 --> 0:23:49.796 philosophical question is, how do you relate to these movements 0:23:50.036 --> 0:23:53.796 with respect to your own research project, which has been 0:23:53.836 --> 0:23:58.516 so focused on facilitating the police doing a better job 0:23:58.556 --> 0:24:02.116 than they are doing. So again, not that you're giving them, 0:24:02.196 --> 0:24:04.516 giving the police some free paths. To the contrary, you're 0:24:04.556 --> 0:24:06.396 calling on them to do their jobs. But if they 0:24:06.396 --> 0:24:08.996 were to do their jobs, it would mean more law enforcement, 0:24:09.476 --> 0:24:14.956 more criminal laws, and potentially more prison sentences. All right, 0:24:15.476 --> 0:24:21.156 So do you think Dylan Roof should be walking around? 0:24:21.716 --> 0:24:25.716 Dylan Roof is the young man who went to the 0:24:25.836 --> 0:24:33.516 church in Charleston, South Carolina and killed I believe nine 0:24:34.396 --> 0:24:40.116 people at a Bible study African Americans, all of them 0:24:41.116 --> 0:24:45.716 praying or praying and study Bible. So I certainly do not. 0:24:45.956 --> 0:24:50.116 But I'm also not a part of the abolition movement. 0:24:50.716 --> 0:24:54.116 So there's a role then for police here, and that's 0:24:54.276 --> 0:25:00.876 the first mistake that those abolitionists make, right, we have 0:25:00.916 --> 0:25:05.356 a role for they want law enforcement all they do, 0:25:05.476 --> 0:25:10.956 and they want law enforcement in this contact right very 0:25:10.996 --> 0:25:17.276 clearly a hate crime. Law enforcement is the reason Dylan 0:25:17.356 --> 0:25:23.356 Roof is not walking around. I think that you can 0:25:23.476 --> 0:25:31.196 extrapolate Dylan Roof to the person the kid who decides 0:25:31.356 --> 0:25:38.236 they want to leave racist flyers on my lawn or 0:25:38.356 --> 0:25:44.156 burn across on my lawn, scrawl something on my garage door. 0:25:45.316 --> 0:25:49.796 I think that there's a role for law enforcement to 0:25:50.556 --> 0:25:56.076 be involved in that. And to the concern about, well, 0:25:56.076 --> 0:26:00.036 we can't trust law enforcement to do this, I've seen 0:26:00.156 --> 0:26:05.116 law enforcement do this, and if we properly incentivize law 0:26:05.236 --> 0:26:10.756 enforcement and provide them this sport they need to do this, 0:26:11.516 --> 0:26:17.836 they can actually be quite good victim advocates. So I 0:26:17.836 --> 0:26:22.596 think that it's important not to throw the baby out 0:26:22.636 --> 0:26:27.316 with the bathwater. There are law enforcement officers who are 0:26:28.916 --> 0:26:34.316 quite biased. We know this, right, but it doesn't mean 0:26:34.756 --> 0:26:39.956 that we should not expect law enforcement officers who don't 0:26:39.996 --> 0:26:43.636 have such biases to serve the public in the way 0:26:43.956 --> 0:26:50.116 that the legislators have determined they should. When you make 0:26:50.156 --> 0:26:57.956 that very compelling response to actual abolitionists, prison abolitionists, or 0:26:57.956 --> 0:27:01.516 police abolitionists, if you have had occasion too, would imagine 0:27:01.516 --> 0:27:04.316 you probably have. How is it taken? I mean, it 0:27:04.396 --> 0:27:06.836 seems so compelling to me, But again, I'm not starting 0:27:06.836 --> 0:27:08.996 from the same position as some of those critics of this. 0:27:09.236 --> 0:27:17.116 They respond by saying, listen, we can't trust law enforcement 0:27:17.236 --> 0:27:26.156 because they lock up a disproportionate number of African Americans 0:27:26.156 --> 0:27:31.316 for hate crime. And I say, well, actually, I've looked 0:27:31.356 --> 0:27:34.676 at that, right, I've looked at law enforcement that was 0:27:34.756 --> 0:27:40.116 actually doing the real work of investigating hate crime, and 0:27:40.236 --> 0:27:45.236 I did not see evidence of that. Show me law 0:27:45.356 --> 0:27:49.476 enforcement that is actually doing its job with respect to 0:27:49.556 --> 0:27:58.036 hate crime, and show me that they are disproportionately enforcing 0:27:58.036 --> 0:28:03.556 the law. You are just assuming because large numbers of 0:28:03.636 --> 0:28:08.436 African Americans, more than you think should be, are being arrested. 0:28:08.756 --> 0:28:11.756 And I say that's a problem that you need to 0:28:11.796 --> 0:28:17.396 correct with law enforcement, as opposed to again saying we 0:28:17.436 --> 0:28:23.916 shouldn't do this at all. When you work with law enforcement, 0:28:24.356 --> 0:28:26.676 I take it that sometimes you're wearing a pure researcher 0:28:26.716 --> 0:28:31.316 hat and sometimes you're wearing an advisor, guide advocate, help 0:28:31.356 --> 0:28:33.876 them do a better job hat, And maybe it's possible 0:28:33.876 --> 0:28:37.036 to wear those two hats simultaneously. I was wondering in 0:28:37.156 --> 0:28:40.676 either of these modes. What reception do you have you 0:28:40.716 --> 0:28:44.156 had personally as a scholar and a researcher and sometime 0:28:44.196 --> 0:28:50.556 activist in encountering police when you discuss with them, you know, 0:28:50.636 --> 0:28:52.156 this is how you can do it better. This is 0:28:52.196 --> 0:28:53.876 what you're not doing, This is what the point that 0:28:53.876 --> 0:28:58.116 you're missing. I haven't had that role actually with law 0:28:58.196 --> 0:29:02.916 enforcement officers. I am about to take up that role. 0:29:04.476 --> 0:29:08.796 And meaning until now you've been a pure researcher and 0:29:08.836 --> 0:29:11.916 now going to be Yeah, I'm gonna sort of try 0:29:11.956 --> 0:29:18.036 to start helping law enforcement locally, at least locally with 0:29:19.716 --> 0:29:22.636 the issue of hate crime and to boost reporting of 0:29:22.636 --> 0:29:27.196 hate crime, because that's another thing that law enforcement can 0:29:27.356 --> 0:29:32.876 do to better address the issue of hate crime. They 0:29:32.996 --> 0:29:35.476 can have someone on the other end of the line 0:29:35.876 --> 0:29:41.356 when people call and who is not a Joe Friday, 0:29:41.436 --> 0:29:44.796 just the facts man. And when you say you're about 0:29:44.836 --> 0:29:47.276 to take up that role, it sounds like you've already 0:29:47.316 --> 0:29:49.636 done the first steps of talking to them about how 0:29:49.676 --> 0:29:54.836 that might be doable. Oh. Yes, in part because I've 0:29:54.876 --> 0:30:01.436 experienced this. I was walking, you know, in the neighborhood, 0:30:02.116 --> 0:30:05.676 and someone yelled something out of a car. I knew 0:30:06.636 --> 0:30:08.836 because I teach the First Amendment that this was not 0:30:08.956 --> 0:30:16.196 a hate crime, but it was unpleasant, right. So I 0:30:16.236 --> 0:30:18.676 told a bunch of people about it, and one person 0:30:18.716 --> 0:30:20.596 that I told about it said, you need to report 0:30:20.636 --> 0:30:24.476 that to the police. I said, oh, come on, not good. Heavens, 0:30:25.116 --> 0:30:27.156 you know, I know more about the police and hate 0:30:27.156 --> 0:30:29.476 crime than most people. We don't even have a hate 0:30:29.516 --> 0:30:33.916 crime statute, not reporting. She said, listen, the police want 0:30:33.956 --> 0:30:37.596 to know about this. So I called the police, feeling 0:30:37.676 --> 0:30:41.996 quite foolish about this, and had an encounter with the 0:30:42.076 --> 0:30:48.716 law enforcement officer supposedly randomly who really got it about 0:30:49.516 --> 0:30:56.836 how to take information about incidents like this. He understood 0:30:56.956 --> 0:31:01.516 quite well the power of the police in these sorts 0:31:01.516 --> 0:31:08.396 of situations. You've mentioned increasing reporting as a desirable objective, 0:31:08.596 --> 0:31:10.556 and I want to to ask you about and this 0:31:10.636 --> 0:31:14.236 is whearing your social scientist analysts had. When we do 0:31:14.516 --> 0:31:17.956 see a rise in the reporting of hate crimes, do 0:31:17.996 --> 0:31:21.316 you tend to interpret that as just more consciousness, more 0:31:21.316 --> 0:31:24.516 people doing what you did and reporting things, police being 0:31:24.516 --> 0:31:27.516 more receptive to taking reports, or do you see it 0:31:27.556 --> 0:31:31.556 as reflecting background conditions that they're actually might be rising 0:31:31.756 --> 0:31:34.876 numbers of hate crimes in the United states in their 0:31:34.916 --> 0:31:38.636 current moment, because obviously the public wants to know which 0:31:38.676 --> 0:31:41.316 of those two things is happening. Even if it's inherently 0:31:41.316 --> 0:31:43.476