Attorney General Holder tells Congress new hate crime law needed

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urged a Senate committee to advance a hate crimes bill that would increase police authorities' abilities to heavily prosecute bias-motivated crimes.

The bill, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, would expand current prosecution laws and protect LGBT crime victims.

Holder mentioned his testimony on a nearly identical bill to the senate in July 1998. Just months after his appearance before Senate members, Shepard was brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyo. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson targeted Shepard because he was gay.

"While it is unfortunate that 11 years have come and gone without this bill becoming law, I am confident that we can make the important protections that it offers a reality this year," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The number of hate crimes reported in 1998 (7,755) has been more or less unchanged since then -- 7,624 reported in 2007.

"...During the last decade, religiously motivated incidents have generally accounted for the second highest number of hate crime incidents, followed closely by sexual orientation bias incidents," Holder said. Between 1998 and 2007, he added, 12,372 hate crimes based on sexual orientation have been reported.

"Since the year I first testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on hate crimes legislation, there have been over 77,000 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI, not counting crimes committed in 2008 and 2009." he said. "That is nearly one hate crime every hour of every day over a decade."