Thanks, in part, to the help of a Yale student, the New Haven Police Department NHPD has received a $124,352 federal grant supporting programs to combat hate crimes in the city.
Marissa Hughes '97 coauthored the proposal that netted the grant while serving this summer as a President's Public Service Fellow. She is only one of several Yale community members who have been working with the NHPD to increase understanding of hate crimes and decrease their occurrence.
Ms. Hughes began working for the NHPD's Bias Crime Unit during a period when the unit was in the process of forming a Hate Crimes Prevention Program. "I applied for the President's Public Service Fellowship because I thought it would be interesting staying in New Haven for a summer working for the City of New Haven," says Ms. Hughes. "When I was assigned to work with the Hate Crimes Prevention Program, it ended up being a completely different summer than I had originally imagined -- actually much more rewarding for me."
Ms. Hughes worked closely with NHPD officers, including Sergeant Kelly Dillon-Wardrop and Detective Petisia Adger. "When I came, Kelly had resurrected the Hate Crimes Advisory Board," says Ms. Hughes, "and they were talking about getting the advocacy/community awareness program going again."
After learning that the Department of Education made grants available for hate crime prevention programs, the Yale senior began preparing a proposal with Sergeant Wardrop. "The things we knew we wanted were an advocacy project, a speakers project and a community outreach project," says Ms. Hughes. "Other projects added after that were an expansion of our original ideas."
The advocacy project trains community members to represent victims of hate crimes and conflicts 10 volunteers already have been trained , while the speakers project trains local residents to communicate publicly about hate crimes and provide information about the NHPD Bias Crime Unit. The community outreach project involves promoting the Hate Crimes Prevention Program through media coverage, billboard advertising, public service announcements, and publicly distributed flyers and bookmarks. Other programs posited in the grant proposal include summer outreach to school- aged youth; a calendar listing major religious, racial, ethnic and cultural holidays and events; town meetings with various groups at police substations; a library with books, videos and other information on hate-motivated crime at the NHPD for public research and reading; a 24-hour answering service and advocate hotline for victims of bias-motivated conflict; and Bias Crime Unit computer links with schools, libraries and police substations funding for several computers to help track hate crimes, also was requested in the proposal .
The one-year cost for all of the planned projects is estimated at $293,207. The federal grant will offset approximately 42 percent of that and the remainder is expected be realized through in-kind and volunteer contributions.
To prepare the proposal, Ms. Hughes kept regular office hours at the NHPD, 1 Union Ave., working 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday -- "sometimes a little longer" when needed, she says. For example, "it took a long time to put together the budget."
The Connecticut state statute defines a bias or hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or group of people, or against property, that is motivated by the offender's bias regarding race, religion, ethnicity/national origin or sexual orientation, says Detective Adger. Such crimes are considered a Class D felony and are required by both state and federal law to be reported to the state police and the FBI, she adds.
"The state statute, titled 'Intimidation Based on Bias and Bigotry,' took effect in 1990," says Detective Adger. Since then, she says, in addition to outreach programs, the NHPD has implemented mandatory education and awareness training and periodic retraining for all its officers. "Every three to four years officers are recertified," Detective Adger says. She notes that in 1997 physically disabled persons will be added to the list of groups protected against hate crimes under the state statute.
"I have nothing but good things to say about what New Haven is trying to do," says Donald Green, professor of political science and director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Ms. Hughes' work with the NHPD Bias Crime Unit is an extension of an established "Yale connection" with the unit, says Professor Green, who focuses a portion of his research on hate crimes and has been working with the NHPD to help increase officers' awareness of bias-related offenses. "I've been conducting hate crimes training now for three rounds of training," he says. He covers aspects such as "the specifics of Connecticut's law, how Connecticut's law fits in with other laws, and the law's historical perspective."
The Yale-NHPD Bias Crime Unit connection is further reinforced through work undertaken by Professor Green's students, he notes. "One graduate student of mine who had a President's Public Service Fellowship helped with their community outreach program. We also have a number of students working on a hate crimes study," he says.
In his work, "I try not only to raise the salience of this law, but part of what I do is sort out misconceptions about hate crimes," says Professor Green. "What police do can have long-term repercussions."
"I developed a lot of respect for police officers" as a result of working with the Bias Crime Unit this summer, says Ms. Hughes. "I quickly learned how much work is really needed to identify and address these crimes. Without such a strong commitment from people in the department so much would not happen. I think without a doubt this is the best hate crimes prevention program in the state."
It will become even better because of Ms. Hughes' involvement, says Detective Adger. "When Marissa came in, she and Kelly Wardrop decided the program would be bigger than it was. Marissa did a lot of the extra contact work that was needed."
For Ms. Hughes, who is majoring in art history, the work in which she became involved this summer helped her focus her career goals. "Art history is a major for me, but I see myself working in a field more related to conflict resolution," says Ms. Hughes, who spent a previous summer in New York developing a diversity curriculum for Educators for Social Responsibility. "I think there should be a lot more information about criminal bias out there, and that information should be a lot more accessible to people."