Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Racial Violence Civil Rights Convictions for 2013

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first eight months of FY 2013 the government reported 11 new convictions under the program category of civil rights — racial violence. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of convictions will be 17 for this fiscal year. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this estimate is down 32% over the past fiscal year when the number of convictions totaled 25. The comparisons of the number of defendants convicted for racial violence civil rights offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. Compared to five years ago when there were 16, the estimate of FY 2013 convictions of this type is up 6.3 percent. Convictions over the past year are higher than they were ten years ago. Overall, the data show that convictions of this type are up 21.4 percent from the level of 14 reported in 2003. The long term trend in racial violence civil rights convictions going back to FY 1995 (when the program category was created) is shown more clearly in Figure 1. The vertical bars in Figure 1 represent the number of racial violence civil rights convictions of this type recorded each fiscal year. Projected figures for the current fiscal year are shown. Each presidential administration is distinguished by the color of the bars. For more details, including a timeline of such prosecutions since 1995, see the report.”

Leave a reply