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Anti-Semitism in the United States: FBI Hate Crime Statistics 2004

A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is 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.


- Background
- Bias-Motivated Offenses
- Participation
- Law Enforcement Reports
- Known Offender's Race
- Incidents
- Offenses
- Victims
- Offenders
- Tables

Background

In response to mounting national concern over crimes motivated by bias, Congress enacted the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990. The law directed the Attorney General to collect data “about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” The Attorney General delegated the responsibility for developing and implementing a hate crime data collection program to the Director of the FBI, who assigned the task to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. In September 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include both physical and mental disabilities. The UCR Program began collecting statistics on offenses motivated by bias against physical and mental disabilities in January 1997. The Church Arson Act of 1996 mandated that hate crime data collection become a permanent part of the UCR Program.

Bias-motivated Offenses

Percent Distribution,1 2004
Figure 2.17: Bias-motivated Offenses Percent Distribution, 2004


1 Due to rounding, the percentages may not add to 100.0.

Those who developed the guidelines for hate crime data collection recognized that hate crimes are not separate, distinct crimes; instead, they are traditional offenses motivated by the offender’s bias. After much consideration, the developers decided that hate crime data could be derived by capturing the additional element of bias in those offenses already being reported to the UCR Program. Attaching the collection of hate crime statistics to the established UCR data collection procedures, they concluded, would fulfill the directives of the Hate Crime Statistics Act without placing an undue additional reporting burden on law enforcement and, in time, would develop a substantial body of data about the nature and frequency of bias crimes occurring throughout the Nation. As a result, the law enforcement agencies that participate in the national hate crime program collect details about an offender’s bias motivation associated with the following offense types: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and destruction/damage/vandalism of property. The law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System also collect data on additional bias-motivated crimes against persons or crimes against property (e.g., fraud) and publishes these crimes as Other.

An abstract based on the information received from law enforcement agencies that provided 1 to 12 months of hate crime reports during 2004 follows. More detailed information concerning the characteristics of hate crime can be found in the UCR Program’s annual publication Hate Crime Statistics.

Participation

The UCR Program published the first national hate crime data in 1992 with participation from 6,200 law enforcement agencies. Since then, the hate crime data collection program has been marked by a slow but steady increase in participation. A total of 12,711 law enforcement agencies took part in the national hate crime program during 2004. This number represents a 6.7-percent increase in agency participation from 2003. Of those agencies that participated, 2,046 (16.1 percent) reported hate crime incidents. (See Table 2.35.) By way of comparison, 11,909 agencies participated in the program in 2003, and 1,967 (16.5 percent) contributed hate crime incident reports.

Law Enforcement Reports

The national UCR Program views each hate crime as an incident, which may have multiple offenses, victims, and offenders. When aggregating the number of hate crime offenses committed against individuals, the UCR Program counts one offense for each victim. The offense types of murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation are crimes against persons. When counting crimes against property, the UCR Program allots one offense for each distinct incident regardless of the number of victims. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and destruction/damage/vandalism comprise the offense types that the Program considers crimes against property .

For 2004, the hate crime program tallied 7,649 bias-motivated incidents involving 9,035 offenses directed at 9,528 victims. The offenses were committed by 7,145 known offenders1.

Known Offender's Race, 2004

 

Total
7,145
White
4,327
Black
1,408
American Indian/Alaskan Native
48
Asian/Pacific Islander
70
Multiple Races, Group2
367
Unknown Race
925

1 The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the suspect is known, but only that an attribute of the suspect has been identified, which distinguishes him/her from an unknown offender.

2 The term multiple races, group is used to describe a group of offenders comprised of individuals of varying races.

Incidents

The great majority of hate crime incidents involve a single bias, although the hate crime program accepts reports of multiple-bias incidents. By definition, a multiple-bias incident is one in which two or more offense types were motivated by two or more bias types. Of the 7,649 incidents reported by law enforcement agencies in 2004, 7 were multiple-bias incidents.

Law enforcement investigators found that racial prejudice motivated more than half of all the reported single-bias incidents (52.9 percent). They attributed 18.0 percent of the incidents to a religious bias, 15.7 percent to a sexual-orientation bias, and 12.7 percent to an ethnicity/national origin bias. The remaining incidents were ascribed to a disability bias.

Offenses

In the hate crime program, bias-motivated offenses can be directed at persons, property, or society. During 2004, law enforcement agencies identified 9,035 offenses within the reported 7,649 incidents. Of these offenses, 62.4 percent were directed against persons, 36.9 percent against property, and the remainder (0.7 percent) against society.

Approximately one-half of all bias-motivated offenses against persons involved the crime of intimidation (50.1 percent). Nearly all of the other offenses directed at persons involved assaults: simple assaults made up 31.0 percent and aggravated assaults accounted for 18.4 percent of the offenses.

The majority of hate motivated offenses directed against property (84.4 percent) involved destruction, damage, or vandalism.

An analysis of the total reported offenses showed that intimidation accounted for 31.3 percent of the 9,035 offenses; destruction/damage/vandalism, 31.1 percent; simple assault, 19.4 percent; and aggravated assault, 11.5 percent of the total offenses.

Victims

Of the 9,528 victims of hate crimes in 2004, 9,514 were associated with an incident involving a single bias. More than half of that number (53.8 percent) were victims of racial prejudice. Of those, 67.9 percent were victimized because of anti-black attitudes, and 20.1 percent were targets of anti-white sentiments.

Victims of religious intolerance made up 16.7 percent of the victims of incidents involving a single bias. Of those, 67.8 percent were victims of anti-Jewish bias, and 12.7 percent were targets of anti-Islamic bias.

Of the total number of victims of single-bias incidents, 15.6 percent were attacked because of a sexual-orientation bias. The majority of those victims, 60.9 percent, were the objects of anti-male homosexual attitudes on the part of the offenders.

Approximately 13 percent (13.2) of the victims in single-bias incidents were targeted because of the offenders’ ethnicity/national orientation bias. Of those, 51.5 percent were marked because of the perpetrators’ anti-Hispanic views.

Less than 1 percent of the total victims of crimes motivated by a single bias were targets of an anti-disability bias. Of the 73 victims of this type of bias, 49 were the subjects of a bias against a mental disability.

Fourteen of the total 9,528 victims of hate crimes were the objects of multiple biases on the part of the offenders.

Offenders

The hate crime incident reports for 2004 contained a total of 7,145 known offenders. The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the perpetrator was known but only that a distinguishing attribute of the individual, race, was noted on the incident report.

Of those persons who committed a crime based upon their perceived biases, 60.6 percent were white, and 19.7 percent were black. Nearly 13 percent (12.9) were classified as unknown race. Groups containing persons of various races accounted for 5.1 percent of the perpetrators, and the remainder were American Indian/Alaskan Natives or Asian/Pacific Islanders.)

Tables

Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Bias Motivation, 2004

Bias motivation Incidents Offenses Victims1 Known offenders2
Total
7,649
9,035
9,528
7,145
Single-Bias Incidents
7,642
9,021
9,514
7,136
Race:
4,042
4,863
5,119
4,173
  Anti-White
829
998
1,027
1,085
  Anti-Black
2,731
3,281
3,475
2,694
  Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native
83
97
100
97
  Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander
217
252
266
188
  Anti-Multiple Races, Group
182
235
251
109
Religion:
1,374
1,480
1,586
604
  Anti-Jewish
954
1,003
1,076
330
  Anti-Catholic
57
57
68
37
  Anti-Protestant
38
43
48
28
  Anti-Islamic
156
193
201
124
  Anti-Other Religion
128
140
147
68
  Anti-Multiple Religions, Group
35
37
39
14
  Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.
6
7
7
3
Sexual Orientation:
1,197
1,406
1,482
1,258
  Anti-Male Homosexual
738
855
902
832
  Anti-Female Homosexual
164
201
212
163
  Anti-Homosexual
245
297
314
224
  Anti-Heterosexual
33
35
36
22
  Anti-Bisexual
17
18
18
17
Ethnicity/National Origin:
972
1,201
1,254
1,047
  Anti-Hispanic
475
611
646
585
  Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin
497
590
608
462
Disability:
57
71
73
54
  Anti-Physical
23
23
24
16
  Anti-Mental
34
48
49
38
Multiple-Bias Incidents3
7
14
14
9

1 The term victim may refer to a person, business, institution, or society as a whole.

2 The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the suspect is known, but only that an attribute of the suspect has been identified, which distinguishes him/her from an unknown offender.

3 A multiple-bias incident occurs only when two or more offense types are committed in a single incident. In a situation where there is more than one offense type, the agency can indicate a different bias motivation for each offense type. In the case of a single offense type, only one bias motivation can be indicated.

Table 2.33

Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Offense Type, 2004

Offense type Incidents1 Offenses Victims2 Known offenders3
Total
7,649
9,035
9,528
7,145
Crimes against persons:
4,503
5,642
5,642
5,710
  Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
5
5
5
5
  Forcible rape
4
4
4
5
  Aggravated assault
765
1,040
1,040
1,316
  Simple assault
1,448
1,750
1,750
2,190
  Intimidation
2,267
2,827
2,827
2,173
  Other4
14
16
16
21
Crimes against property:
3,333
3,333
3,826
1,711
  Robbery
112
112
142
241
  Burglary
146
146
169
130
  Larceny-theft
169
169
186
134
  Motor vehicle theft
15
15
15
8
  Arson
44
44
57
45
  Destruction/damage/vandalism
2,812
2,812
3,220
1,115
  Other4
35
35
37
38
Crimes against society4
60
60
60
75

1 The actual number of incidents is 7,649. However, the column figures will not add to the total because incidents may include more than one offense type, and these are counted in each appropriate offense type category.

2 The term victim may refer to a person, business, institution, or society as a whole.

3 The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the suspect is known, but only that an attribute of the suspect has been identified, which distinguishes him/her from an unknown offender. The actual number of known offenders is 7,145. However, the column figures will not add to the total because some offenders are responsible for more than one offense type, and they are, therefore, counted more than once in this table.

4 Includes additional offenses collected in the NIBRS.

Agency Hate Crime Reporting by State, 2004

Participating state # of participating agencies Population covered Agencies submitting reports Total # of incidents reported
Total
12,711
254,193,439
2,046
7,649
Alabama
51
527,267
3
3
Alaska
1
273,714
1
9
Arizona
82
5,554,597
19
224
Arkansas
192
1,632,735
50
93
California
725
35,893,799
245
1,393
Colorado
205
4,443,685
26
59
Connecticut
100
3,503,604
49
116
Delaware
53
830,364
11
33
District of Columbia
2
553,523
2
49
Florida
490
17,351,455
95
274
Georgia
77
1,576,482
7
29
Idaho
119
1,392,114
12
37
Illinois
63
5,088,478
48
187
Indiana
137
3,017,102
13
63
Iowa
219
2,905,626
17
23
Kansas
357
2,109,590
21
49
Kentucky
326
3,709,354
32
71
Louisiana
148
3,499,083
12
22
Maine
147
1,317,253
29
68
Maryland
150
5,558,058
32
245
Massachusetts
301
5,837,059
90
346
Michigan
601
8,995,290
172
556
Minnesota
318
5,083,400
63
239
Mississippi
68
1,012,911
2
2
Missouri
259
3,534,443
29
71
Montana
105
926,865
25
56
Nebraska
207
1,493,580
15
62
Nevada
35
2,334,771
4
81
New Hampshire
140
935,961
29
48
New Jersey
513
8,698,879
249
769
New Mexico
49
1,172,271
3
21
New York
520
19,199,225
42
386
North Carolina
418
8,027,181
35
66
North Dakota
69
560,073
5
8
Ohio
410
8,991,851
74
353
Oklahoma
297
3,523,553
29
51
Oregon
170
3,592,045
23
155
Pennsylvania
857
11,406,091
34
105
Rhode Island
48
1,080,632
8
29
South Carolina
468
4,196,056
51
105
South Dakota
155
765,756
6
7
Tennessee
453
5,900,962
68
136
Texas
987
22,466,217
84
309
Utah
55
1,840,775
16
59
Vermont
74
602,735
12
28
Virginia
395
7,399,760
68
307
Washington
253
6,203,788
51
175
West Virginia
431
1,815,354
12
31
Wisconsin
369
5,509,026
19
37
Wyoming
42
349,046
4
4

Source: FBI