FBI Releases Hate Crime Statistics for 2003

[The Straight Story]

For Immediate Release
November 22, 2004



Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office

FBI Releases Hate Crime Statistics for 2003

Washington, D.C.–According to a report released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, antagonism toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability prompted crimes against 9,100 victims during 2003. Hate Crime Statistics, 2003, published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, includes data aggregated from hate crime reports submitted by local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation. The report documents 7,489 bias-motivated incidents, which include 8,715 separate offenses.

Incidents

A review of the data by incident showed that all but 4 of the incidents were classified as single-bias (involving only one bias motivation). A breakdown of the single-bias incidents by the type of bias revealed that 51.4 percent were motivated by racial bigotry, 17.9 percent were caused by religious intolerance, 16.6 percent were the result of a sexual-orientation bias, and 13.7 percent were triggered by an ethnicity/national origin bias. The remainder involved a bias against a disability.

Offenses and Victims

The offenses of murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation are considered by the UCR Program to be crimes against persons. Within this category, intimidation was the most often reported hate crime, comprising 49.7 percent of the total crimes against persons in 2003. Simple assault accounted for 32.8 percent of the total, and aggravated assault comprised 16.7 percent. Murder and forcible rape accounted for 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, of crimes against persons, and the offense category other made up the remaining 0.5 percent.

Among the 14 bias-motivated murders reported by law enforcement, 6 homicides were committed as a result of a sexual-orientation bias, 5 were the result of racial prejudice, and 2 were committed because of a bias against an ethnicity/national origin. One murder was the result of a hostility toward a disability.

The UCR Program categorizes as crimes against property the offenses of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and damage/destruction/vandalism. The latter was the most frequently reported hate crime offense against property, accounting for 83.4 percent of the total. Of the 2,618 acts of destruction, damage, or vandalism driven by bias, 47.6 percent were directed at individuals, 10.5 percent were aimed at business or financial institutions, 8.1 percent were leveled at governmental entities, and another 8.1 percent were directed at religious organizations. Unknown, multiple, or other victim types accounted for the remainder.

Offenders

In addition to gathering hate crime data about incidents, victims, and offenses, the UCR Program collects data about known offenders. In the context of hate crime data collection, the term known offender does not imply that the identity of the perpetrator is known but only that a distinguishing attribute has been identified. With regard to the attribute of race, among the 6,934 reported offenders, 62.3 percent were white, and 18.5 percent were black. The race was unknown for 10.7 percent of offenders, and the remainder were of other races or were members of a group composed of offenders of varying races.

Location

The UCR Program analyzed the data by type of location and found that the majority of hate crime incidents (32.0 percent) took place in or on residential properties. Highways, roads, alleys, or streets were the settings for 17.6 percent of the reported incidents, and 11.8 percent took place at schools and colleges. The remaining incidents were distributed among various locations.

The information contained in the current report was submitted to the FBI by 11,909 law enforcement agencies. Although the data collected are not sufficient to serve as a valid national or regional measure of the extent of hate crime occurrences, they offer perspectives on the general nature of the hate crime phenomenon in the United States.

The complete annual report, Hate Crime Statistics, 2003, is available on the FBI’s Internet site at <www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm>.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel04/pressrel112204.htm