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No one can predict when the next hate crime will occur, but being informed can help law enforcement extinguish the terror in victims and communities throughout the nation
Skinheads and other hate cnme groups terrorize the innocent while instilling fear into communities across the nation. According to the Southern Law Poverty Center's (SPLC's) Intelligence Project, a on-profit organization that tracks the American radical right, "The racist skinheads' trademark style - shaved head, combat boots, bomber jacket, neo-Nazi and white power tattoos - has become a fixture in Amencan culture."
It's evident that skinheads and hate groups are becoming more prevalent each year According to the FBI 2005 Hate Cnme Statistics, 54.7 percent of the 7,160 single-bias incidents were triggered by a religious bias and 13.2 percent were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias.
In 2006, the SPLC specifically tracked more than 844 cases which included groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, Black Separatist, Neo-Confederate, Racist Skinhead and Christian Identity, Skinheads can be involved with groups such as these.
"From a law enforcement and safety standpoint, these are people who are on the most violent edge of the extreme right, people whose culture is a violent culture," says Joseph Roy of the SPLC Roy says the extreme anti-political and anti-law enforcement opinions and culturally violent beliefs of the skinheads are a dangerous mix.
"From those two aspects they're a threat to law enforcement," Roy says He believes it is inevitable for law enforcement to encounter these groups within their communities. In fact, he says it is more likely for police to encounter skinheads than they are any other terrorist group. Knowledge and education about the ways skinheads and other hate groups operate is imperative.
"It's important for law enforcement to at least have an idea what's going on out there domestically," Roy says
H.R. 1592
In May, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCFA) of 2007 to provide federal assistance to state and local jurisdictions, as well as Indian tribes, to prosecute hate crimes.
This act defines "hate crime" as any violent act causing death or bodily injury because of the actual or perceived race, color: religion, national origin, sexual onentation, gender, gender identity...