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Hate Crime

Defining the Problem. The term "hate crime" was coined in the 1980s by journalists and policy advocates who were attempting to describe a series of incidents directed at Jews, Asians, and African-Americans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines hate crime (also known as bias crime) as "a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin" (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2006). Washington and Oregon were the first States to pass hate crime legislation in 1981; today, 49 States have hate crime statutes. States vary with regard to the groups protected under hate crime laws (e.g., religion, race or ethnicity, and sexual orientation), the range of crimes covered, and the penalty enhancements for offenders. Most States and large cities now have hate crime task forces coordinating across several levels of government and working with community organizations.

Uneven Data Collection Makes Estimating Prevalence Difficult

Accurate estimates of the prevalence of hate crime remain elusive because of differences in data collection efforts across jurisdictions. In addition to varying State definitions, differences in law enforcement training, statistical reporting provisions, and attitudes toward hate crime as a legitimately separate class of crime all make it harder for law enforcement and researchers to establish the scope of the problem. In 1990, Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act, which required the U.S. Department of Justice to acquire crime data from law enforcement agencies and publish an annual summary of findings. The FBI led a coordinated effort to collect hate crime data via the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system.

In 2005, law enforcement agencies voluntarily reported 7,160 single-bias hate crime incidents (involving 8,373 offenses, 8,795 victims, and 6,800 offenders) to the FBI. Almost 55 percent were racially motivated and 17 percent were motivated by religious bias. Bias against sexual orientation and ethnicity or national origin accounted for another 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2006).

Estimates from victim interviews reported as part of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) far exceed these numbers. NCVS indicates that approximately 191,000 hate crime incidents occur annually. Results from victim interviews indicate that only 44 percent of victimizations were reported to the police (Harlow, 2005). Only about 20 percent of these were validated by law enforcement as bias related.