The Honorable William Hooks told a group of police chiefs Oct. 26 that corruption in their departments was preventing efforts to curb hate crimes.
The Cook County Circuit Court Judge told a meeting of International Association of Chiefs of Police ( IACP ) Civil Rights Committee that they need to do better when it comes to preventing and following up on hate crimes.
Hooks was part of an IACP panel at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy on hate crimes. Other panelists included Chief Tina M. Skahill, Chicago Police Department; Mona Noriega, commissioner of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations; and Miriam Lieberman, civil rights counsel for the Midwest chapter of the Anti-Defamation League.
The panel, "Embracing Diversity: Have We Moved in the Right Direction?" focused on what law enforcement can do to combat hate crimes on the streets and prejudice among police.
Skahill said that efforts to reduce hate crimes need to start with police recruitment.
"Diversity in law enforcement is a necessity for fostering meaningful dialogues and relationships within a community," Skahill said. "Some minorities may not want to join the police department. Dialogue on these issues is needed."
Skahill reported that Chicago had 57 reported hate crimes in 2009, but added that such crimes often go unreported, making the numbers falsely low.
"Marginalized communities for a million and one reasons do not report," Noriega agreed. Part of the reason, she said, is that they have been victimized in the past by law enforcement.
According to Noriega, hate crimes are most prevalent in neighborhoods where the population is changing racially or ethnically, due to biases of residents or concerns that gentrification is pushing the community out.
Since September, she said, the Commission on Human Relations has dealt with 43 reports of hate crimes.
Lieberman said that hate crimes are particularly concerning because they are crimes against an entire community. She said that the necessity of hate crimes legislation is to provide a counter-message to that community.
But Hooks put the issue on police themselves.
"I don't care where you come from," he told an auditorium of approximately 30 police chiefs. "There are factions in your agency that should be in jail."
Hooks said he was "sick" of the corruption that undercut community trust in police. He said that fighting hate crimes meant that offers had to stop making jokes about marginalized people.
"We have got to do better," he said. "I don't care what you did in the past, you can make a difference."
According to Lieberman, findings suggest that LGBT people experienced the third highest rate of hate crimes nationally in 2009 ( the most recent statistic available ) . Anti-LGBT crimes made up 18.5 percent of reported cases.
Overwhelmingly however, hate crimes in 2009 were motivated by race at 48.5 percent. Most of those, said Lieberman, were targeted at Latinos, as immigration remains a hot-button issue in the U.S.
