NPR ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

OCTOBER 13, 1998, TUESDAY

Hate Crimes

GUESTS: Brian Levin

BYLINE: Noah Adams, Washington DC

Noah talks with Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate an Extremism at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, about hate crime legislation. Levin says hate crime law acts as a deterrent because hate crime perpetrators are punished more severely in states where such laws exist. Matthew Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student, who was severely beaten, died yesterday. Wyoming has no hate crime laws.

NOAH ADAMS, HOST: In Wyoming, the charges against two men accused of killing a gay college student have been upgraded to first degree murder. Aaron McKinney (ph) and Russell Henderson (ph) are suspected of kidnapping, robbing and beating Matthew Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student. Shepard died yesterday, five days after he was found tied to a fence.

Wyoming is one of nine states without any sort of hate crime law. Brian Levin is director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. He says hate crime laws can raise the punishment for most crimes.

BRIAN LEVIN, Director, Center On Hate And Extremism, Richard Stockton College: For something like homicide, it's not going to make a whole heck of a lot of difference. But if you're talking for a criminal mischief or a simple assault, it will generally bring the offense level up one notch.

So you could go from a class A misdemeanor to a class F felony. The thing that I think is important is many of these crimes are not adequately punished to begin with, so the hate-enhancer sends I think a strong deterrent because most of the offenders are not these hardcore ideologues. They're people whose motivation is much more diluted. They're out for excitement of peer approval.

ADAMS: Give us an example of a lesser offense than murder that you've run across in the past that could be in the hate crime category.

LEVIN: Assault, criminal mischief, all those types of things, terroristic threats. Those kind of things I think are exactly the kind of offenses that are not getting punished enough, and particularly not getting punished enough when they are committed as hate crimes.

ADAMS: Is there, indeed, a rise in what could be called hate crimes? Or simply are we seeing this label put on an activity that's been around for a long time, that's not changing?

LEVIN: I think it's the latter. I think there's been now a label and people are more aware of it. We frankly saw a spike during the late '80s and early '90s where hate crimes were rising year after year. Then in the mid-90s, the hate crimes seem to plateau and actually decline a bit. And now it looks like we've hit bottom and are probably coming back up.

ADAMS: Do you know of a state in which the rate has actually gone down because of the legislation on the books?

LEVIN: Oh, absolutely. In 1979, Massachusetts passed the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. Boston started counting hate crimes and they aggressively enforced both criminal and civil provisions. And they cut the number of hate crimes in their city by two-thirds.

ADAMS: The victim's father, Matthew Shepard's father, told the governor of Wyoming: be very careful -- you're talking about the possibility of a hate crime law in Wyoming -- be very careful of any changes and be sure you're not taking away rights of others in the process to race to this.

Would hate crimes, in your opinion, tend to stifle opposition, for example, to homosexuality?

LEVIN: No. In fact, the Supreme Court had this very issue come up a couple of years ago in the case of a very religious preacher from New Jersey who said New Jersey's anti-discrimination laws, which say you can't fire someone for being gay, violated his right to freedom of speech. And the Supreme Court didn't even take the case. They refused to even hear it. The bottom line here is: you can say whatever you want as long as you're not violent or threatening. You can hate whoever you like as long as you don't commit a crime.

The Supreme Court has been very clear in saying: motivation, when it's relevant to the commission of a crime, you can bring that in in criminal cases, but you cannot punish someone criminally for having bigoted thoughts.

ADAMS: But if you're a conservative group and you want to speak out against homosexuality, if there is a hate crime legislation nationwide, you would be reluctant to do that because you could be -- you don't want to encourage violence against homosexuals, the law aside.

LEVIN: Well, that's a very different issue. Having the right to do something and doing that responsibly are two different things. I think many of these groups unfortunately, not withstanding their religious convictions, set a climate where certain impressionable young people take their statements as an invitation to commit anti-gay hate crimes.

ADAMS: Professor Levin, thank you for your time.

LEVIN: Noah, thank you for having me.

ADAMS: Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey.