y those with similar demographic characteristics as the victims. In their most extreme form, hate crimes attempt to exterminate a segment of the population (Powers, 2002). Beyond the devastating psychological impact, hate crimes and crimes committed en masse or in the extreme can lead to mass violence. Most 20th-century genocides or ethnic cleansings against groups such as Armenians, Jews, and Bosnians began with individuals or small groups taking actions against populations that began small and grew exponentially (Powers, 2002). This may lead to retaliation, counter-retaliation, social unrest, and potentially civil war. These dangers to individuals, families, groups, communities, and society led to increased penalties assigned for hate-related crimes in the United States (ADL, 1999).
Under federal law, a crime motivated, in whole or in part, by the victim's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation is a “hate crime” (Krouse & Beaver, 2006). Investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of hate crimes mostly rest at the state level. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have specific hate crime statutes. These statutes generally follow the Anti-Defamation League penalty enhancement strategy, which allows for a more serious sentence to be prescribed to those who chose the victims of their crimes based on the race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender of the victim, or on the offender's perception of such (Wallace, 2006).
All states have legislation that allows some prosecution of hate crimes (Wallace, 2006). The federal government's involvement is limited to jurisdiction over hate crimes affecting federally protected rights such as voting, nationwide hate crime reporting, regulating inter-agency cooperation in hate crime investigations, and funding hate crimes prevention among populations such as juveniles and members of the armed services. Despite efforts in recent years by members such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) to expand the federal government's jurisdiction over hate crimes with legislation such as the Local Law Enforcement Act of 2005 and other similar bills, legislation has not been enacted to expand the federal government's jurisdiction in this area. This legislation's opponents argue that hate crimes are best handled at the state and local levels, that the constitutional rationale for such federal legislation is weak, and that such legislation would be more symbolic than effective (Krouse & Beaver, 2006).
The U.S. Department of Justice records hate crime statistics using two distinct methods. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program publishes hate crimes as reported by state and local law enforcement agencies. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) gathers data about crime victims through the National Crime Victimization Survey. Less than half of the crimes described to the BJS by victims as hate-related have been reported to law enforcement agencies. The BJS annual numbers are nine times higher than the FBI's statistics. This significant discrepancy suggests that the UCR seriously underreports incidents of hate crimes (Krouse & Beaver, 2006). Reasons for the FBI's underreporting of hate crimes include victims' fear of retribution against themselves, their family, or other group members; disagreements about whether violent crimes against women should be considered hate crimes (Gross, 1999; McPhail & DeNitto, 2005); difficulty in defining how much hate must be present for an act to be classified as a hate crime (McPhail, 2000); and victims' unwillingness to “out” themselves as a member of a stigmatized group (Swigonski, Mama, & Ward, 2006).
Social workers are in a key position to educate, help prevent, and ameliorate the devastating consequences of hate crimes from a variety of positions. They interact with those directly affected by hate crimes: victims, perpetrators, and family members. They also assist communities to prevent or handle instances of hate crimes and