CAHRO Staff Commissioned to Write Report for the Attorney General Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes

Fred Persily, CAHRO'S Executive Director, has contracted with the California Attorney General to work with the Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes. In the past, Fred has worked with former Democratic Attorney General John Van de Kamp's Commission on Racial, Ethnic, Religious and Minority Violence and his Commission on Disabilities and was responsible for drafting four previous commission reports. However, he sees the challenge of working with this commission as unique because there are over 40 people appointed to the Commission, which will be holding community forums on hate crimes throughout California.

Fred Korematsu, who sued the federal government and won reparations for Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in internment camps during World War II because of their ethnicity, was appointed as the titular chair of the Commission. The two presiding co-chairs are Dr. Joseph MacNamara, former San Jose Police Chief, and member of Stanford's Hoover Institute, and Actor Edward James Olmos, who viewed it as an opportunity to explore ways in which youth involvement in hate crime could be minimized. The forum sites include; San Diego County, Orange County, the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, the Central Valley, the Central Coast, Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area, Sonoma-Napa-Marin Counties, Sacramento, Mendocino County, Sutter-Yuba-Butte Counties, Shasta County, and Humboldt County.

During 2000, the Commission will focus on improving the reporting of bias-related incidents and hate crimes. There are both personal and institutional barriers to reporting hate crimes and the Commission will seek to draft recommendations for overcoming those barriers. Personal reasons for not reporting hate crimes include, but are not limited to: fear of reprisal from the perpetrator and those who sympathize with the perpetrator; mistrust of law enforcement; concern about letting others know about one's sexual orientation or immigration status; etc. Institutional reasons for not taking reports of hate crimes or bias-motivated violence involve protecting the image of a community or a school as being free from bigotry, but there are also issues related to the need for uniform definitions and training.

CAHRO will provide a first draft of recommendations in May for the Commission to consider, but the final draft of recommendations will not be completed until after all the community forums are held to allow for additional ideas from the participants. A final report will be submitted to the California Attorney General for final editing in late October.

The Attorney General is planning to keep the commission operating during his term in office and will select other areas for concentration in ensuing years.