'Hate' crimes statistics really aren't adding up

• The so-called "hate" crimes statistics that special interest groups and politicians use to justify the necessity for new laws just don't add up.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), America needs to punish criminals with enhanced sentences if it is determined that the victim was chosen because of "race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender."

America is listening. Currently, 43 states and Washington have enacted laws based on the model drafted by the ADL. At long last, murder, rape and robbery cases -- which already involve an offender who "hates" a victim -- will be recognized as worse if they are perpetrated by someone with a prejudice.

The Department of Justice reported the in 1999 there were 7,876 bias-motivated criminal incidents. Of these incidents, whites with anti-black motivations committed 2,030. Only 524 criminal acts were by blacks against whites.

This would seem to confirm the politically correct view of the greater prejudice of whites in America.

This is not the whole story, however.

According to the FBI, in 1999 there were 876,142 cases of violent crime committed by blacks against whites. In that same year, there were only 108,116 cases of violent crime perpetrated by whites against blacks.

The discrepancy is clear. It seems quite unlikely that whites committed nearly four times as many hate crimes against blacks, when blacks committed over eight times as many violent crimes against whites.

The reason for these conflicting numbers lies with in so-called "hate crime" legislation and its application.

Special interest groups like the ADL are creating inequalities all the time, which are quickly accepted as law by cowering politicians.

Hate crime legislation is flawed by the fact that it requires prosecutors to assume that they know and can prove a bias on the part of a defendant. Such legislation is transformed into a brave injustice by applying it to only certain groups in society.

The same FBI report showed that in 1999, less than one-tenth of a percent of black rape victims were raped by whites. In that same period, 7.3 percent of rapes of white women were committed by blacks. That translates to 20,000 rape victims.

Do you think those victims felt at ease when assured that only a fraction of those rapes were motivated by racial bias?

Could a family take comfort that a murdered father was killed by a person with no malice in his heart?

These questions are as absurd as any attempt to try and answer them.

Paddy A. Chara is the nom de plume of an economist working for the government.