Hate Crimes in Philadelphia

There has been a lot of publicity lately about the violent flash mob attacks on the streets of Philadelphia carried out by young African-Americans on Caucasion victims. In addition, in December of 2009, numerous Asian students in Philadelphia schools were  attacked and beaten by African-American schoolmates. That led to hearings in Philadelphia in January 2010 by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations  in the wake of an Asian boycot of South Philadelphia High School.

Out here in Orange County, California, we have a county human relations commission that really doesn't have a lot to do. They try and make it seem they have a lot of work on their hands to justify their annual budget of $300,000, but in reality, our folks get along pretty well out here.

Apparently, not so much in the so-called City of Brotherly Love. I was wondering about their own human relations commission and how they are handling all the negative publicity. Since the OCHRC published an annual report breaking down hate crimes by perpetrator group and victim group, I was wondering if the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations did the same. Below are some of the sites I visited in order to get some empirical evidence on what is going on in Philadelphia.

Here is a report breaking down Philadelphia and Pennsylvania crimes (including hate crimes) from 2006-2009. It is not very helpful.

http://www.usa.com/philadelphia-pa-crime-and-crime-rate.htm

Below is an article from philly.com on the Asian case.

http://articles.philly.com/2010-08-28/news/24999089_1_asian-students-complaint-south-philadelphia-high-school

Below is a link to a report on racial problems in schools called Widening the Circle of our Concern. It is produced by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations as a result of the Asian incidents. As you will see, it is a bunch of feel good mumbo-jumbo.

http://www.wideningthecircle.org/files/PCHR_full_report_english.pdf

Digging further, I found a list of PHRC annual reports. The most recent is for 2009.

http://www.phila.gov/humanrelations/pdfs/2009_Annual_Report1.pdf

Nothing there although I find it interesting that this agency has an annual budget over 2 million dollars, can compel testimony of witnesses, and can levy fines.

At any rate, on Saturday, I sent an email to the PCHR:

To whom it may concern,


My name is Gary Fouse, and I am a teacher at the University of California at
Irvine. Here in Orange County, our Human Relations Commission publishes an
annual report which includes statistics on hate crimes and hate incidents, which
is broken down by perpetrator group and victim group. I have been reading your
2009 report (latest) and find no such breakdowns. Do you have such numbers and
if so could you provide me with the link to it?




Thank you for your time and consideration.


Sincerely,


Gary Fouse

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To date, I am still awaiting a response. I will let you know when I hear from them.