Methodology

Data Reporting

In accordance with the Hate Crime Statistics Act and its subsequent amendments, the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program compiles data regarding crimes motivated by racial, religious, disability, sexual-orientation, and ethnicity/national origin biases. City, county, and state law enforcement agencies may submit hate crime data to the UCR Program using the Quarterly Hate Crime Report Form or the hate crime data element for the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The Quarterly Hate Crime Report Form consists of a quarterly summary and an incident report for each bias-motivated incident. The form is typically used by agencies that report their data by using summary guidelines. Agencies participating in NIBRS are able to report an offender's bias motivation using the hate crime data element in their NIBRS submissions via magnetic tape. Individual agencies and state UCR Programs that use personal computers for data collection and storage may submit hate crime data on disks.

Data Collection

Criminal incidents can involve more than one offense, victim, and/or offender. For counting purposes, one offense is counted for each victim of a crime against person. One offense is counted for each distinct incident of crime against property and crime against society, regardless of the number of victims. The total number of victims in a given incident is the sum of victims associated with each offense that took place within the incident.

Hate crime data are collected for 11 offense categories. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation are classified as crimes against persons. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and destruction/damage/vandalism of property are classified as crimes against property.

In NIBRS, the hate crime data element applies to all 46 Group "A" Offenses, which include the previously mentioned 11 offense categories. The remaining 35 Group "A" Offenses not listed are reported in this publication as other or as crimes against society, whichever is appropriate.

Data Compilation

Once the UCR Program receives the data, they are compiled in tables and discussed in narrative comments that address the volume and types of bias-motivated criminal incidents. In particular, Section I provides various tabular presentations of the incidents reported to the FBI. It also addresses the specific offenses, types of victims, and any available offender information. Section II furnishes individual state and agency information. In this year's edition of Hate Crime Statistics, there is a notable difference in the presentation of individual agency listings in Tables 13 and 14. The new format details the number and types of bias motivations reported by those agencies that submitted actual incidents (Table 13) and lists separately those agencies that submitted a "zero report" (meaning the agency reported no bias-motivated crimes occured in its jursidiction) (Table 14).

Data Publication

To be included in this publication, law enforcement agencies must have submitted data for at least one month of the calendar year. Consequently, figures may or may not represent complete 12-month totals for any given agency. For that reason, and in consideration of the fact that many variables affect the volume and type of crime from place to place, data users should exercise caution in attempting direct comparison of hate crime totals among agencies.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Federal Bureau of Investigation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group