Hate Crimes

A hate crime, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is a crime against person or property that is motivated in whole or in part by biases based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability. As of May 2011, 45 states had hate crime or antibias laws in effect. These laws allow prosecutors to enhance the charges of perpetrators who commit crimes based on their biases. Bias must be proven by the police and can be based on the offender's actions, friends, and group affiliations. Hate crimes include any offense motivated by bias, such as vandalism, theft, arson, assault, or murder.

Since 1992, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) has provided supplemental reports on hate crimes. These reports show as a general trend that most hate crimes are motivated by racial biases, followed by religious biases and sexual-orientation biases. Most hate crimes are crimes against persons and include crimes such as intimidation, assault, and aggravated assault. Hate crimes that are categorized as crimes against property mostly consist of vandalism, damage, and destruction of property.

In 2010, according to the UCR, there were 6,628 hate crime incidents that involved 7,699 offenses that were reported to law enforcement. Of these incidents, 47.3% were racially motivated, 20% were motivated by religious bias, and 19.3% were the result of biases against sexual orientation. Within the hate crimes that were racially motivated, 69.8% were motivated by antiblack bias, 65.4% of the religious-biased hate crimes were anti-Jewish, and 57.9% of the sexual orientation–biased hated crimes were motivated by antimale homosexual bias. Most of the hate crime offenses (62.7%) were crimes against persons—the most common (46.2%) was intimidation—while 37.2% were crimes against property, and the majority (81.1%) of these were destruction/damage/vandalism of property.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, greatly increased the number of anti-Islamic–motivated hate crimes in the United States. In the years prior to 9/11, 1996–2000, the UCR reported a high of 32 anti-Islamic hate crime incidents involving 34 offenses in 1999. In 2001, the year of the attacks, there were 481 anti-Islamic hate crime incidents involving 546 offenses. The next year, 2002, there were 155 anti-Islamic–motivated hate crime incidents involving 170 offenses. In 2010, there were [Page 321]160 anti-Islamic–motivated hate crime incidents involving 186 offenses. This makes up 13.2% of all religiously motivated hate crimes, second only to anti-Jewish–motivated hate crimes.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) indicates that there were 1,018 active hate groups in the United States in 2011, using information gained from hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement field sources, and news reports. California (84), Georgia (65), Florida (55), and Mississippi (41) are the states with the highest numbers of active hate groups. The SPLC says that these hate groups' activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing, but being counted as a hate group by the SPLC does not imply that the group advocates or engages in violence or any other criminal activities. Having a high concentration of hate groups does not translate into having a high number of hate crimes. According to the UCR in 2010, California reported 1,092 hate crime incidents, Florida reported 136 hate crime incidents, Georgia reported 17 hate crime incidents, and Mississippi reported 11 hate crime incidents. This translates to California being responsible for 16.4% of the hate crime incidents in 2010, Florida 2.0%, Georgia 0.25%, and Mississippi responsible for reporting 0.16% of the hate crime incidents in 2010.

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