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Hate Crimes Statistics Act

The Hate Crimes Statistics Act (HCSA) became law in 1990 in response to a number of high-profile bias-motivated crimes that occurred during the 1980s. These crimes became the basis of claims by a variety of interest groups that such actions had reached epidemic proportions and that the crimes did not receive sufficient attention from law enforcement agencies. To support this view and in an effort to combat bias-motivated incidents, various groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force/Anti-Violence Project, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, began to collect and disseminate data on such incidents. The activities of these groups led congressional leaders to pass federal legislation to address the matter. The resulting HCSA was introduced in 1985 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in 1990.

The HCSA, however, is not designed to combat hate crimes, but rather to serve as a database to record such crimes in an attempt to monitor where they might be occurring and to aid in annual comparisons. Specifically, the act requires the attorney general of the United States to gather and disseminate data regarding “crimes that manifest prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” In an attempt to provide accurate data and to ensure that there is some comparability among reporting agencies, the HCSA also requires the attorney general to develop guidelines to assist law enforcement with data collection.

Although the HCSA was hailed as the first piece of federal civil rights legislation to include sexual orientation as a protected status, this development was not without opposition. To ensure the HCSA was not misconstrued as approving of homosexual behavior, the act asserts that “the American family life is the foundation of American society…and nothing in this Act shall be construed, nor shall any funds appropriated to carry out the purpose of the Act be used, to promote or encourage homosexuality.”

Amendments to the HCSA

Since its passage, the HCSA has been amended twice. In 1994, passage of the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act added disability as a protected status under the HCSA. In 1996, when the Church Arson Prevention Act reauthorized the HCSA, it made data collection efforts permanent, expanding the act from its original five-year data gathering mandate. Legislation pending at the end of 2003 (the Hate Crimes Statistics Improvement Act) was intended to add gender to the HCSA.

Hate Crimes Data Collection

Under the HCSA, information on hate crimes is collected from local law enforcement agencies at the same time they report statistics to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR). In 2001, 11,987 agencies, representing approximately 85% of the country's population, provided hate crime statistics to the UCR. Along with its annual report based on the material submitted, the FBI also provides data collection guidelines to assist law enforcement officials in identifying hate crimes, determining their motivation, and submitting the required data to the UCR.

The UCR Hate Crimes Statistics annual report provides information on the type of bias motivation, the number of incidents, the number of offenses, the race of known offenders, and the location of the occurrence of hate crime incidents. Since 1991, the annual reports have indicated that race is the most frequent type of bias motivation and that the most frequent offense is intimidation. The majority of hate crimes is committed against persons (as opposed to property), but the most frequent hate crime against property is destruction/damage/vandalism. In addition to the agency tallies, the annual report lists agencies that submit zero reports—a total of zero hate crime incidents within their jurisdiction. This list is quite extensive; according to a report released in 2000 from Northeastern University's Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research, 83% of participating agencies submit zero reports.

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