8217;s legislature successfully added gender to the list of groups in which the membership entitles the victim to protection under these statutes (AB 1999). California also has a bill that states that burning a cross or other religious symbol on the property of another without their consent would make the offense a felony instead of a misdemeanor. (SB 414 1998). Many states have introduced some form of a Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Law, and failed to have the bill enrolled. In many of these states, including Texas (HB 938), Oklahoma (SB 725), California (AB 1999), Kansas (HB 2309), the fact that the Hate Crimes Sentence Enhancement Act was not passed by both chambers did not suppress their efforts. In all the above states, a Hate Crimes Unit, or Officer Training in the field of hate crimes has been approved by the entire state legislature and given funding. House Bill 938 in Texas died in the 76th legislature, but hate crime supporters worked to add as an amendment, the officer training to another bill, thus giving some beginning to monitoring and dealing with hate crimes more efficiently. In California, the city of San Francisco was given permission by the legislature to create a Hate Crimes Unit in their police department. The Unit is given funding to train officers in hate crime, and handle all investigations and hate crime allegations. Oklahoma has an identical set up to that of California. Drawing conclusions from hate crime statistics must be done with caution, for it is extremely difficult to measure the statistics of hate crimes for a variety of reasons. No un- reported crimes are brought into the data for the statistics, nor are the crimes not classified by the state law enforcement agency. Therefore, if a state does not recognize sexual orientation or gender as a group that entitles protection under the statutes, the crime is not labeled a hate crime, when indeed it may have been considered a hate crime in ...
