Regulacje i polityka gospodarcza · 18.12.1997

Civil Penalties for Fair Housing Act Violations

This proposed rule interprets the Fair Housing Act to allow Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to assess a separate civil penalty for each of multiple acts involving housing discrimination. Under the Fair Housing Act, housing discrimination violations carry maximum civil penalties for first-, second-, and third-time offenders. This proposed rule would interpret the Fair Housing Act to clarify that, in a given case, an ALJ may assess more than one maximum civil penalty against a respondent in a given case, where the respondent has committed separate and distinct acts of discrimination. The proposed rule is also part of President Clinton's ``Make 'Em Pay'' initiative, which is designed to fight housing-related acts of hate violence and intimidation with increased enforcement and monetary penalties. Such housing-related hate acts continue to pose a significant problem; last year, according to FBI statistics, of 8,759 hate crimes, 2,416, or 27%, were housing-related. The rule would describe how ALJs are to consider housing-related hate acts under the six factors ALJs apply in determining the amount of a civil penalty to assess against a respondent found to have committed a discriminatory