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- NATION, Page 37American NotesCRIMEKeeping Tabs On Hate
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- With more and more offenses committed each year by the Ku
- Klux Klan, skinhead toughs, neo-Nazis and various other hate
- groups, civil rights advocates were heartened last week when
- President Bush signed a law authorizing the Justice Department
- to keep track of crimes motivated by racial, religious or sexual
- prejudice.
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- But the Hate Crimes Statistics Act is already caught up in
- the Government's financial squeeze. The FBI complains that
- budget cutbacks will force it to fire 147 staff members from its
- records division. The dismissals will make it more difficult to
- compile the bureau's annual Uniform Crime Reports (which list
- serious offenses such as murder, rape and robbery) and still
- keep tabs on hate crimes. New York Democratic Congressman
- Charles Schumer, who sponsored the bill in the House, is worried
- that the cutbacks will turn the measure into "little more than
- an empty gesture." Says an FBI spokesman: "It'll get done, one
- way or another."
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