NYC Creates Hate Crimes Prevention Office as Bias Offenses Spike

(Bloomberg) -- New York City has established a City Hall office to prevent hate crimes, after years of experiencing a rise in such activity even as incidents of murder and other crimes have plummeted.

Deborah Lauter, 62, appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, will head the office after 18 years working for the Anti-Defamation League, created by Jewish organizations that evolved into a group fighting bias based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. At the ADL, she helped create a coalition of groups advocating for the 2009 federal hate crimes law that helped local law enforcement prosecute such offenses.

The new office will coordinate policy and action among the police department, schools and other city agencies to increase awareness of bias crimes and enlist community organizations in reducing them, Lauter said in an interview.

“There’s not one way to fight or prevent hate crimes,” she said. “We are going to need a holistic approach, coordinating agencies, sharing information and best practices and relying on education in our schools and communities.”

Her appointment comes as police and city officials contend with a trend of increasing violence toward individuals and property destruction motivated by bias, even as major crimes have dropped 78% since 1992. In the first six months of this year, the city recorded 250 complaints, which places it on a pace to exceed last year’s 353. About 58% through June were directed at Jews, and crimes reported against blacks came in second at 11%, according to police statistics.

Last week police reported two assaults against Jews in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section: a rock thrown at a truck driver’s side window on Aug. 29 that inflicted a cut to his face and an attack two days earlier on a rabbi who said he was injured in a fight with a man who yelled an ethnic slur and threw a paving stone at him.

Even with the increasing reports, scores of hate crimes go unreported by immigrants and other individual intimidated by fear of retaliation or public exposure, Lauter said.

“We need people to become more comfortable reporting these crimes because without knowing about them we’re unable to punish and deter such conduct and assess the true health and safety of our communities,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, Michael B. Marois

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