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NYPD Bungled Hate Crimes Reporting

NYPD Bungled Hate Crimes Reporting
Matt Sledge
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Contributor

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 17: New York City Police officers stand guard in Times Square, in New York, United States on 17 September, 2014. Security measures tightened on critical points of New York after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant call for terrorist attack against New York on the social media. (Photo by Bilgin Sasmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 17: New York City Police officers stand guard in Times Square, in New York, United States on 17 September, 2014. Security measures tightened on critical points of New York after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant call for terrorist attack against New York on the social media. (Photo by Bilgin Sasmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

NEW YORK -- The NYPD has repeatedly misreported the number of hate crimes incidents it investigates, a state comptroller's audit released Thursday found.

The report found that in 2010, poor police record-keeping led to the underreporting of 21 potential hate crimes to the state. The audit's release comes as city officials are expressing alarm about a 50 percent spike in bias attacks against Jews and Muslims in New York City.

“Criminal acts involving violence, intimidation and destruction of property based on bias and prejudice cannot be tolerated,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement. "While the NYPD has made a good faith effort to accurately report these insidious crimes, there are several areas where improvements are needed.”

The NYPD is required to report hate crimes data to the state, which then compiles data for use in statewide and FBI reports. The comptroller said that accurately collecting the data is critical in understanding and addressing bias crimes.

In 2010 the NYPD's hate crimes task force counted 371 incidents, while only 350 were reported to state police, the audit found. The numbers were also off for 2012, but in the other direction: There were 367 incidents counted in the precincts, but 374 reported to the state.

Despite the NYPD's vaunted Compstat program for crime statistics, moreover, the report states that "when we asked NYPD officials whether they performed any statistical analysis of the reported data for decision-making purposes, we were told that they do not."

In addition to reporting the crimes themselves, the comptroller also faulted the NYPD for the way it tracks training given to officers on investigating hate crimes.

"According to NYPD officials, training records are not maintained by topic, nor are they kept electronically or in a central location," the audit found. Street-level records were no better: "[O]nly two of the ten precincts we visited showed us such records for hate-crimes roll-call training."

In a letter accompanying the audit, NYPD Inspector Terrence Riley acknowledged that changes need to be made, and promised to improve the police force's hate crimes database.

Before You Go

Lethal Injection
AP
Until 2010, most states used a three-drug combination: an anesthetic (pentobarbital or sodium thiopental), a paralytic agent (pancuronium bromide) to paralyze the muscle system, and a drug to stop the heart (potassium chloride). Recently, European pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell drugs to the U.S. for use in lethal injections, requiring states to find new, untested alternatives.
Gas Chamber
AP
Gas chambers, like this one pictured at the former Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., were first used in the U.S. in 1924. In the procedure, an inmate is sealed inside an airtight chamber which is then filled with toxic hydrogen cyanide gas. Oxygen starvation ultimately leads to death, but the inmate does not immediately lose consciousness.
Electric Chair
AP
The first electric chair was used in 1890. Electrodes attached to an inmate's body deliver a current of electricity. Sometimes more than one jolt is required.
Hanging
AP
Hanging was used as the primary method of execution in the U.S. until the electric chair's invention in 1890. Death is typically caused by dislocation of the vertebrae or asphyxiation, but in cases when the rope is too long, the inmate can sometimes be decapitated. If too short, the inmate can take up to 45 minutes to die.
Firing Squad
AP
This Old West-style execution method dates back to the invention of firearms. In a typical scenario in the U.S., the inmate is strapped to a chair. Five anonymous marksmen stand 20 feet away, aim rifles at the convict's heart, and shoot. One rifle is loaded with blanks.
Beheading
Wikimedia Commons
Decapitation has been used in capital punishment for thousands of years. Above is the chopping block used for beheadings at the Tower of London.
Guillotine
Kauko via Wikimedia Commons
Invented in France in the late 18th century during the French Revolution, the guillotine was designed to be an egalitarian means of execution. It severed the head more quickly and efficiently than beheading by sword.
Hanging, Drawing and Quartering
Wikimedia Commons
A punishment for men convicted of high treason, "hanging, drawing and quartering" was used in England between the 13th and 19th centuries. Men were dragged behind a horse, then hanged, disemboweled, beheaded, and chopped or torn into four pieces.
Slow Slicing
Carter Cutlery/Wikimedia Commons
Also called "death by a thousand cuts," this execution method was used in China from roughly A.D. 900 until it was banned in 1905. The slicing took place for up to three days. It was used as punishment for treason and killing one's parents.
Boiling Alive
Wikimedia Commons
Death by boiling goes back to the first century A.D., and was legal in the 16th century in England as punishment for treason. This method of execution involved placing the person into a large cauldron containing a boiling liquid such as oil or water.
Crucifixion
Wikimedia Commons
Crucifixion goes back to around the 6th century B.C.used today in Sudan. For this method of execution, a person is tied or nailed to a cross and left to hang. Death is slow and painful, ranging from hours to days.
Burning Alive
Pat Canova via Getty Images
Records show societies burning criminals alive as far back as the 18 century B.C. under Hammurabi's Code of Laws in Babylonia. It has been used as punishment for sexual deviancy, witchcraft, treason and heresy.
Live Burial
Antoine Wiertz/Wikimedia Commons
Execution by burial goes back to 260 B.C. in ancient China, when 400,000 were reportedly buried alive by the Qin dynasty. Depending on the size of the coffin (assuming there is one), it can take anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours for a person to run out of oxygen.
Stoning
Wikimedia Commons
This ancient method of execution continues to be used as punishment for adultery today.
Crushing By Elephant
Wikimedia Commons
This method was commonly used for many centuries in South and Southeast Asia, in which an elephant would crush and dismember convicts as a punishment for treason.
Flaying
Michelangelo/Wikimedia Commons
Records show flaying, the removal of skin from the body, was used as far back as the 9th century B.C.
Impalement
Wikimedia Commons
Records show this execution practice used as far back as the 18th century B.C., where a person is penetrated through the center of their body with a stake or pole.
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