My Journey from Prosecution to Prevention

In the summer of 1992, I was asked by the Attorney General of Maine to develop and direct our first Civil Rights Enforcement Unit. A state statute had authorized the Attorney General to obtain restraining orders against individuals who commit bias-motivated violence, threat of violence or property damage.

That August when we investigated and brought in court our first enforcement case, I had not the slightest idea that I would one day leave my career as a prosecutor to engage the problem from another front. In 1999, I began the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence (CPHV) at the University of Southern Maine.

Our task is to provide training on how to prevent hate violence, as well as promote research and teaching on issues relating to bias-motivated violence. The nexus between prosecution and prevention is actually quite understandable to those who have worked with hate crimes. Over the 1990s, hate crimes committed by teenagers in school (or outside of school between classmates) increased as a percentage of the total hate crimes in Maine.

In 1992, fewer than 20 percent of the civil rights complaints filed with the Maine Department of the Attorney General involved teenagers. By the end of the decade, that number had risen to more than 45 percent.

The extent to which this change was a function of better reporting or real growth in youth-based hate crimes is hard to discern. However, the preponderance of school-based hate crimes is a matter of grave concern.

A recent study by Northeastern University researchers, "Understanding the Prevalence and Characteristics of Bias Crime in Massachusetts High Schools" (McDevitt et al., 2002) supports our findings in Maine. The report found that 7.7 percent of the high school students surveyed had been the victims of bias-motivated crimes at school in the six months prior to the survey.

Perhaps most critical, I learned within my first several months as a hate crime prosecutor that bias-motivated crimes in schools do not erupt out of thin air. I discovered during investigations of hate crimes in high schools, colleges and even middle schools, that the violence invariably traced back to the routine use of degrading language that escalated over time to more serious misconduct.

Law enforcement has a critical role. When harassment moves beyond acceptable lines to violence, young people need to know there are legal consequences. However, if we are going to succeed in reducing the incidence of bias and hate violence, we need to work on prevention.

It is important to note one distinction. The prevention of bias, harassment and violence does not involve the censorship of ideas and beliefs. Students have the right to their own beliefs – even beliefs defined by ugly prejudice – and they have a right to express those beliefs.

But students do not have the right to use degrading words to harass and frighten students from traditionally targeted groups. I am particularly proud of one record from my years of prosecuting hate crimes.

Not once in those years did a court throw out one of our civil rights cases on the grounds that we were violating the First Amendment rights of students (or adults for that matter). We were successful in pursuing bias-motivated violence while at the same time protecting free speech.

Evidence suggests that hate crimes enforcement worked extraordinarily well in deterring juvenile perpetrators from recurrent violation. The effect is much more tenuous, however, in preventing other students from committing similar offenses.

My work in providing training to faculty, staff and administrators, law enforcement officers, community members and parents has left me with a firm conviction that none of these efforts can be truly successful, unless students develop the skills to speak up and stand up for others against prejudice.

The Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, as well as a number of other non-profit organizations around the country, have developed peer-leader programs that teach students how to take positive steps to create a climate of civility and respect.

When our students accomplish this, they not only decrease the chance of serious violence, but they also dramatically reduce the number of students whose school experience is defined by anxiety, fear, humiliation and isolation.

Stepping from prosecution to education, I consider it a challenge and a direct investment to work with students, our nation’s greatest resource for preventing bias, harassment and violence in our schools.