Methodology

The FBI collects hate crime data regarding criminal offenses committed against persons, property, or society that are motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin. Because motivation is subjective, it is difficult to know with certainty whether a crime was the result of the offender's bias. Law enforcement investigation is crucial because it must reveal sufficient evidence to lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that the offender's actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by his or her bias. Only then should law enforcement report an incident as a hate crime.

Data Collection

Because hate crimes are traditional offenses motivated by the offender's bias, law enforcement needs only to capture additional information about 11 select offenses already being reported to the UCR Program to collect hate crime data: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation (crimes against persons) and robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and destruction/damage/vandalism (crimes against property). Furthermore, the offense classification other and the crime category crimes against society include 35 Group A Offenses (not listed) that are captured in NIBRS, which also collects the previously mentioned 11 offense categories. (The Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, NIBRS edition, provides an explanation of all 46 Group A Offenses.)

A hate crime incident can involve more than one offense, victim, and/or offender. In submitting data to the national UCR Program, law enforcement scores one offense for each victim of a crime against a person. When submitting a crime against property, however, law enforcement scores one offense for each distinct incident, regardless of the number of victims. Likewise, law enforcement agencies submitting data through NIBRS score one offense for each distinct incident (not victim) of a crime against society.

Data Reporting

Hate crime data are reported by agencies submitting data through UCR Summary reporting or via the NIBRS. Agencies using summary reporting and some agencies reporting via NIBRS use two standard forms to collect and report data: the Hate Crime Incident Report and the Quarterly Hate Crime Report. These forms supply the national UCR Program with information about each hate crime incident including the offense classification and its respective bias motivation, the number and type of victims, the location of the incident, the number of suspected offenders, and the suspected offender's race.

During a calendar quarter, law enforcement agencies submit a Hate Crime Incident Report for each bias-motivated incident. At the end of each calendar quarter, reporting agencies submit a Quarterly Hate Crime Report, which includes the total number of incidents reported for the quarter and deletes any previously reported incidents that were, through subsequent investigation, determined not to be bias motivated. Additionally, law enforcement agencies submit Quarterly Hate Crime Reports to report zero hate crime incidents; that is, no hate crime incidents occurred in their jurisdiction that quarter.

Most agencies reporting data electronically to the national UCR Program via NIBRS use a data element within their reporting software that indicates a hate crime. Because the data element applies to all 46 of the Group A Offenses, it allows agencies to indicate whether any of the 35 additional offenses were bias motivated. Furthermore, these agencies can report considerably more information about the hate crime incident since NIBRS is an incident-based, comprehensive data collection system.

Data Publication

To be included in this publication, law enforcement agencies must have submitted data for at least 1 month of the calendar year. The published data, therefore, do not necessarily represent reports from each participating agency for 12 months or 4 quarters. Section II of this publication furnishes individual state and agency information, including the number of quarters for which the agency reported data to the national Program.

Notes:

1. When examining the data contained in this report, data users should be aware that the first line following the title of each table presents in boldface type that table's unit of count, i.e., incident, offense, victim, known offender.

2. It is incumbent upon all data users to become as well educated as possible about how to understand and quantify the nature and extent of hate crime in the United States and in any of the more than 12,000 jurisdictions from which agencies contribute data to the UCR hate crime program. Valid assessments are possible only with careful study and analysis of the various unique conditions affecting each local law enforcement jurisdiction. Until data users examine all the variables that affect crime in a town, city, county, state, region, or college or university, they can make no meaningful comparisons. The article "Crime Factors" in the beginning of each edition of Crime in the United States (accessible at the FBI's Internet site at <www.fbi.gov>) presents a comprehensive discussion of the many factors that affect crime in a jurisdiction.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Federal Bureau of Investigation
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