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Anti-Semitism in the United States: FBI Hate Crime Statistics 2002

Definition

A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.

Background

In response to mounting national concern over crimes motivated by bias, Congress enacted the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 on April 23 of that year. This law required 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 responsibilities of developing the procedures for and implementing, collecting, and managing hate crime data to the Director of the FBI, who in turn assigned the tasks to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. In September 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include both physical and mental disabilities as potential bias factors, and the actual collection of disability-bias data began in January 1997. Additionally, the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 mandated that hate crime data collection become a permanent part of the UCR Program.

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. Appending 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, develop a substantial body of data about the nature and frequency of bias crimes occurring throughout the Nation. Accordingly, 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 additional offense types for crimes against persons and crimes against property, which the UCR Program publishes as "other." In addition, these agencies collect hate crime data for another category called "crimes against society.")

An abstract based on the information received from law enforcement agencies that provided 1 to 12 months of hate crime reports during 2002 follows. More detailed information concerning the characteristics of hate crime can be found in the UCR Program's annual publication Hate Crime Statistics.

Participation

A total of 12,073 law enforcement agencies participated in the hate crime program during 2002. Of these agencies, 1,868 agencies (15.5 percent) submitted 7,462 hate crime incident reports to the FBI. (See Table 2.36.) The following hate crime abstract is based on the data received from those law enforcement agencies that provided 1 to 12 months of hate crime reports.

Law Enforcement Reports

The UCR Program data collection guidelines stipulate that a hate crime may involve multiple offenses, victims, and offenders within one incident. Accordingly, in 2002, the 7,462 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI involved 8,832 separate offenses, 9,222 victims, and 7,314 known offenders. (See Table 2.33.) (The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the suspect is known but only that some attribute of the suspect has been identified, distinguishing him or her from an unknown offender.)

Incidents

Of the total single-bias incidents reported in 2002, 48.8 percent were motivated by racial bias, 19.1 percent were driven by prejudice against a particular religion, 16.7 percent involved a sexual-orientation bias, 14.8 percent resulted from a bias against an ethnicity or national origin, and 0.6 percent were motivated by a disability bias. (Based on Table 2.33.)

In addition to single-bias incidents, hate crime data collection guidelines permit the identification of multiple-bias incidents. These are incidents in which two or more offense types were committed as a result of two or more bias motivations. Only 3 of the 7,462 incidents reported in 2002 met that criteria. (See Table 2.33.)

Offenses

A victim of an offense, according to the UCR definition, may be either a person, a business, an institution, or society as a whole. When aggregating the number of hate crime offenses committed against individuals, the program counts one offense for each victim. The offense types of murder, rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation are possible crimes against persons. When counting crimes against property, the 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 are possible crimes against property.

During 2002, a total of 5,960 (67.5 percent) of reported hate crime offenses were crimes against persons, and 2,823 (32.0 percent) were crimes against property. (Crimes against society comprised 0.6 percent of the reported offenses.) Intimidation continued to be the most frequently reported hate crime against individuals and accounted for 52.1 percent of all crimes against persons. Destruction/damage/vandalism of property was the most frequently reported crime against property. Of the instances of crimes against property, 83.1 percent were for the offenses of destruction/damage/vandalism. (Based on Table 2.34.)

Victims

A total of 9,222 individuals, businesses, institutions, or society as a whole were victims of hate crimes in 2002. Approximately 49.7 percent of all single-bias hate crime victims were targets of racial prejudice. Of these victims, 67.2 percent were attacked because of an anti-black bias motivation, and 19.9 percent were attacked because of an anti-white bias motivation. Eighteen percent of single-bias hate crime victims were targets because of the offender's bias toward the victim's religion. Of these, 65.3 percent were targeted because of an anti-Jewish bias motivation. Additionally, 16.4 percent of total single-bias hate crime victims were attacked because of the offender's prejudice against the victim's sexual-orientation; among these victims, 65.0 percent were victims of an anti-male homosexual bias motivation. Approximately 15.3 percent of hate crime victims were targets of ethnicity/national origin bias. Of these, 45.4 percent were victims of anti-Hispanic sentiment. (Based on Table 2.33.)

Offenders

In 2002, there were 7,314 known offenders who committed crimes motivated by biases. The majority of these known hate crime offenders were white, 61.8 percent; 21.8 percent were black; 1.2 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander; 0.6 percent were American Indian or Alaskan Native; 9.8 percent were of unknown race; and 4.9 percent were groups of offenders consisting of multiple races. (Based on Table 2.35.)

Figure 2.19

Bias-motivated Offenses

Percent Distribution 1 2002

Bias-motivated Offenses (Percent Distribution, 2002)

Table 2.33

Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders

by Bias Motivation, 2002

Bias motivation
Incidents
Offenses
Victims1
Known offenders2
Total 7,462 8,832 9,222 7,314
         
Single-Bias Incidents 7,459 8,825 9,211 7,311
         
Race: 3,642 4,393 4,580 4,011
Anti-White 719 888 910 1,064
Anti-Black 2,486 2,967 3,076 2,510
Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native 62 68 72 52
Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander 217 268 280 242
Anti-Multiple Races, Group 158 202 242 143
         
Religion: 1,426 1,576 1,659 568
Anti-Jewish 931 1,039 1,084 317
Anti-Catholic 53 58 71 21
Anti-Protestant 55 57 58 34
Anti-Islamic 155 170 174 103
Anti-Other Religion 198 217 237 73
Anti-Multiple Religions, Group 31 32 32 18
Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. 3 3 3 2
         
Sexual Orientation: 1,244 1,464 1,513 1,438
Anti-Male Homosexual 825 957 984 1,022
Anti-Female Homosexual 172 207 221 172
Anti-Homosexual 222 259 267 225
Anti-Heterosexual 10 26 26 6
Anti-Bisexual 15 15 15 13
         
Ethnicity/National Origin: 1,102 1,345 1,409 1,247
Anti-Hispanic 480 601 639 656
Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin 622 744 770 591
         
Disability: 45 47 50 47
Anti-Physical 20 20 20 21
Anti-Mental 25 27 30 26
         
Multiple-Bias Incidents3 3 7 11 3
3 A multiple-bias incident only occurs when two or more offense types are committed in a single incident. In a situation when there is more than one offense type, the agency can indicate a different bias type for each offense. In the case of a single offense type, only one bias type can be indicated.


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Table 2.34

Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders

by Offense Type, 2002

Offense type
Incidents1
Offenses
Victims2
Known offenders3
Total 7,462 8,832 9,222 7,314
         
Crimes against persons: 4,784 5,960 5,960 6,090
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter 11 11 11 15
Forcible rape 8 8 8 16
Aggravated assault 800 1,035 1,035 1,498
Simple assault 1,473 1,791 1,791 2,436
Intimidation 2,484 3,105 3,105 2,117
Other4 8 10 10 8
         
Crimes against property: 2,823 2,823 3,213 1,423
Robbery 131 131 179 269
Burglary 131 131 163 86
Larceny-theft 151 151 157 95
Motor vehicle theft 9 9 9 3
Arson 38 38 47 27
Destruction/damage/vandalism 2,347 2,347 2,642 927
Other4 16 16 16 16
         
Crimes against society4 49 49 49 61


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Table 2.35

Race of Known Offenders, 20021

Known offender's race
No.
Total 7,314
   
White 4,517
Black 1,592
American Indian/Alaskan Native 43
Asian/Pacific Islander 87
Multiple Races, Group2 355
Unknown Race 720


Table 2.36

Agency Hate Crime Reporting by State, 2002

Participating state
Number of
participating
agencies
Population covered
Agencies submitting
incident reports
Total number of
incidents reported
Total 12,073 247,246,683 1,868 7,462
         
Alabama 31 259,938 2 2
Alaska 1 267,280 1 7
Arizona 88 5,023,657 29 238
Arkansas 7 387,957 0 0
California 726 35,056,859 243 1,648
Colorado 190 4,251,762 30 96
Connecticut 84 2,838,717 50 129
Delaware 50 806,717 8 13
District of Columbia 2 570,898 2 14
Florida 489 16,660,424 93 257
Georgia 76 1,558,760 10 31
Idaho 117 1,330,416 14 43
Illinois 59 4,639,084 46 155
Indiana 163 4,476,334 25 77
Iowa 221 2,863,046 18 46
Kansas 339 2,366,821 13 55
Kentucky 341 3,663,360 38 76
Louisiana 159 3,418,556 13 15
Maine 180 1,291,128 14 36
Maryland 148 5,458,137 26 211
Massachusetts 305 5,822,308 90 430
Michigan 619 9,814,593 164 416
Minnesota 279 4,843,609 71 203
Mississippi 66 942,735 3 3
Missouri 144 2,955,399 19 64
Montana 93 881,473 6 13
Nebraska 203 1,362,661 17 74
Nevada 35 2,173,491 7 62
New Hampshire 107 654,470 19 27
New Jersey 557 8,590,300 220 570
New Mexico 49 1,180,982 3 15
New York 505 19,154,571 63 693
North Carolina 446 8,242,488 29 62
North Dakota 74 562,980 7 18
Ohio 400 8,244,818 63 263
Oklahoma 301 3,493,714 19 44
Oregon 172 3,509,432 24 61
Pennsylvania 849 11,086,040 26 92
Rhode Island 48 1,069,725 7 38
South Carolina 310 4,103,856 35 70
South Dakota 130 734,731 4 4
Tennessee 443 5,796,102 54 129
Texas 969 21,698,160 82 347
Utah 59 1,790,393 17 54
Vermont 57 565,746 10 18
Virginia 399 7,258,150 54 291
Washington 246 6,036,923 47 174
West Virginia 336 1,758,307 16 41
Wisconsin 370 5,438,068 13 32
Wyoming 31 290,607 4 5
 
 

Source: FBI