CRIME
City Hate Crimes Czar Assumes Her Duties
Deborah Lauter emphasizes collaborative approach to prevention push
BY MATT TRACY
New York City’s Offi ce for
the Prevention of Hate
Crimes offi cially opened
its doors late last month
under the stewardship of a veteran
advocate on the issue, marking a
new beginning in the city’s fi ght
to reverse the spike in bias-related
crimes over the past several years.
Established within the Offi ce of
the Mayor, the new unit launched
roughly seven months after the
City Council adopted legislation
aimed at forging a more proactive
prevention strategy toward eradicating
hate crimes.
Deborah Lauter, a former executive
at the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL), was tapped to lead the new
offi ce and is implementing what
she describes as a “holistic” approach
toward bias-related crimes
that have affected Jewish and LGBTQ
New Yorkers at disproportionately
high rates.
Speaking to Gay City News
during her fourth day on the job,
Lauter acknowledged that the offi
ce is in its infancy — it is not yet
fully staffed — but once it is more
fl eshed out, she said, the team will
look to establish relationships with
the range of city agencies that play
roles in taking on hate crimes in
the fi ve boroughs.
“You have the Commission on
Human Rights, the Mayor’s Offi ce
of Immigrant Affairs, the Community
Affairs Unit, the Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene…
all these agencies are doing work
completely in silos but the strategy
of this offi ce is to bring them together,”
said Lauter, who has lived
in the city since 2006.
Lauter envisions those partnerships
being collaborative, with a
focus on brainstorming and sharing
best practices on how to stop
hate crimes before they happen.
She also wants outside parties —
including community members,
advocates, and victims groups —
involved in the discussions.
The prevention-focused team
under Lauter will balance its efforts
with those of the NYPD’s Hate
Deborah Lauter, executive director of the city’s new Offi ce for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, speaks to
the media on September 3.
Crimes Task Force, which investigates
bias incidents in the city and
is focused more on reacting to hate
crimes than preventing them. Lauter
heaped praise on that NYPD
unit, saying the city is “fortunate
to have such an excellent Hate
Crimes Task Force.”
“I want to explore what their
community relations challenges
have been and see if we can help
bridge some of those relationships,”
she said.
Lauter’s team will have their
work cut out for them. The city saw
93 hate crime arrests through the
fi rst two quarters of this year, outpacing
the numbers seen through
the fi rst two quarters in 2017 (87)
and 2018 (63), according to data
provided by the mayor’s offi ce. Of
the 405 total hate crime arrests
citywide between 2017 and 2019,
134 have been classifi ed as anti-
Jewish and 105 have been anti-
LGBTQ. Respectively, those cases
make up 33 percent and 26 percent
of all reported hate crimes, both far
outpacing other motivating factors
in bias crimes. Men between the
ages of 26 and 35 have carried out
the vast majority of hate crimes in
the city.
There have been countless examples
this year of Jewish New
Yorkers facing violent assaults captured
on surveillance video footage,
while homophobic and transphobic
attacks have also been evident:
ED REED/ MAYOR’S OFFICE
A pair of trans women were
attacked in Queens in June and a
man set fi re to Rainbow Flags multiple
times at a gay bar in Harlem
in May and July. Lauter suggested
that queer folks might even be
targeted more than the numbers
indicate, saying, “Hate crimes are
underreported, particularly in the
LGBT community.”
Lauter believes her nearly two
decades of work experience combating
hate crimes groomed her
for the opportunities her new offi
ce provides. Having grown up in
Northern California, Lauter spent
more than a decade in the ADL’s
Atlanta offi ce, where she served
as “the face of the ADL responding
to discrimination in our communities
and hate crimes.” The ADL
then moved her to New York, where
she took on the role of national civil
rights director, leading a team of
staff and volunteer attorneys who
pushed for the passage of the federal
Matthew Shepard, James Byrd
Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, enacted
in 2009, and worked to build
interfaith coalitions geared toward
stopping discrimination against
Muslim communities.
She also served as a senior vice
president for policy and programs
during her time with the ADL.
“In my career fi ghting hate, there
is not one way to fi ght hate,” Lauter
said. “It takes a multi-pronged approach.”
That, she said, entails more
anti-bias education as well as programs
that are more preventative.
But how exactly the effort will take
shape has yet to be determined
because the offi ce is so early in its
development. While Lauter laid out
a general sketch of how the offi ce
would look, she also raised a series
of questions her offi ce will examine
in determining how to organize
itself.
Among the questions on her
mind are how to engage New Yorkers
more in anti-bias education,
how to use tools of community
relations to complement existing
law enforcement efforts, and what
specifi c shape city prevention programs
should take.
“I think the emphasis has been
on reacting — that’s understandable,”
Lauter added. “I would anticipate
looking at examples of hate
crimes that could have happened
and using them to look at how the
different agencies approach it.”
It is not clear how committed
Mayor Bill de Blasio is to the new
offi ce. The City Council bill that
created the offi ce became law without
his signature, and, according
to AM New York, the offi ce opened
only after councilmembers prodded
de Blasio to follow through on
his promise to open its doors this
summer.
At a press conference on September
3, Lauter said she had not
spoken to the mayor since starting
her new position.
Nonetheless, she asserted during
her interview with Gay City News,
the Mayor’s Offi ce of Criminal Justice
has laid “a lot of groundwork”
for the offi ce and “has been helpful
in getting this offi ce going.”
“The goal is to get a team of
quality professionals — people who
have experience, education in law
enforcement, and community relations,”
she said. “I’m just really excited
about this new endeavor.”
Manhattan Councilmember
Mark Levine, who was the lead
sponsor on the bill in the City
Council, did not respond to questions
about the offi ce by press
time.
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