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Research Needed on Hate Crime

An NIJ-commissioned report reviewing hate crime literature and legislation was completed in 2005. [1] The report, along with a followup meeting of experts in the field, helped identify key gaps in research. Some of these include—

• Estimating the prevalence of hate crime accurately.
• Evaluating the impact of hate crime legislation on deterrence, punishment, enforcement, training, and reporting.
• Understanding the varied motivations behind hate crimes, and developing empirically based offender typologies.
• Exploring the effects of hate group membership, affiliation with hate groups, and reading materials produced by hate groups on the commission of hate crime acts.
• Learning how hate crime incidents affect victims and their communities.
• Evaluating programs designed to prevent hate crime or assist hate crime victims.

The report further called for the development of a central Federal repository of hate crime information to better address the inconsistencies among groups in defining hate crime and in data collection, measurement, and analysis.

Trends in Hate Crime Against Immigrants

In late 2009, NIJ was tasked by Congress to "evaluate trends in hate crimes against new immigrants, individuals who are perceived to be immigrants, and Hispanic-Americans, and to assess the underlying causes behind any increase in hate crimes against such groups." [2] NIJ has funded Abt. Associates to conduct this evaluation, which is ongoing.