Tracking the Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Did you know according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the term "hate crime" didn't enter the national vocabulary until the 1980's, when Skinheads and other groups committed a continual series of bias-based crimes?

Hangings, lynching, vandalism and cross burning have been a method of intimidation and bias in the U.S. for some time. However, the FBI didn't begin investigating what we now call hate crimes until their first Ku Klux Klan case in 1924.

Most people think of hate crimes as being exclusively against persons based on race, ethnicity or gender, but hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity are equally rooted in our history and just as heinous.

The federal government has made its biggest push for equal hate crime protection since its last expansion of hate crime "definitions" in 1968. On May 3, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LEHCPA) by a vote of 237 to 180. An identical bill, called the Matthew Shepard Act, is being considered in the Senate.

Take a peek inside these bills and track their status.

More on Hate Crimes:
Hate Crime Statistics
How To Avoid a Hate Crime

_{Image © Michal Zacharzewski, SXC.}