Introduction

When Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, lawmakers mandated the collection of information regarding crimes motivated by a bias against race, religion, sexual orientation, and/or ethnicity/national origin. The Attorney General designated the FBI to satisfy that requirement. With the cooperation and assistance of many local and state law enforcement agencies familiar with the investigation of hate crimes and the collection of related information, the UCR Program created a data collection system to comply with the congressional mandate. The UCR first published information regarding hate crime data collection in Hate Crime Statistics, 1990: A Resource Book, a compilation of hate crime data reported by 11 states that had collected them under state authority in 1990 and were willing to participate. After the national Program implemented a uniform method of data collection, the inaugural edition of Hate Crime Statistics presented data reported by participating law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation in 1992.

The Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include bias against disabilities. The FBI started gathering data for the additional bias motivation on January 1, 1997. Further, the Church Arson Prevention Act, which was signed into law in July 1996, removed the sunset clause from the original statute and indefinitely extended the mandate, hence making hate crime data collection a permanent part of the UCR Program.

Collection Design

The hate crime data collection program was designed to capture information about the types of bias that motivate a crime, the nature of the offense, and some attributes of the victims and offenders. In creating the program, developers considered many factors and recognized that hate crimes are not separate, distinct crimes. Instead, hate crimes were, and continue to be, traditional offenses motivated by the offender's bias. For example, an offender may commit an assault because of a bias he or she has against the victim's race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity or national origin, or disability. Therefore, it was not necessary to create new crime categories; hate crime data could be obtained by collecting additional information about crimes currently being reported to the UCR Program.

Law enforcement's support and participation are vital in moving the hate crime data collection effort from concept to reality. Those organizations that have endorsed the UCR Program's hate crime program include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the former UCR Data Providers Advisory Policy Board (which is now part of the Criminal Justice Information Services Advisory Policy Board), the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, and the Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs. In addition to this support, law enforcement's commitment to participate by identifying and reporting hate crimes is crucial to the national Program's success.

Participation

During 2002, more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies participated in the national UCR Program. Of that total, 12,073 agencies in 49 states and the District of Columbia, representing 247 million inhabitants or 85.7 percent of the Nation's population, participated in the hate crime program.

Agencies reporting data through Summary or the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) submit hate crime data to the FBI either through state UCR Programs or directly (agencies in non-Program states). (A directory of state UCR Programs is available in the Appendix of this publication.) The table on the following page presents the number of law enforcement agencies participating in UCR and hate crime reporting by population group and the population covered collectively by those agencies within the group.

Valid information is critical to law enforcement in developing effective measures to combat bias-motivated crime. By participating in the hate crime data collection program, law enforcement agencies are raising the Nation's awareness of bias-motivated crimes.

Number of Participating Agencies and Population Covered
by Population Group, 2002

                                       Agencies participating in
                                        Uniform Crime Reporting

                                         Number of
                                      participating   Population
Population group agencies                agencies       covered

Total                                       17,324   288,368,698

Group I (Cities 250,000 and over)               71    53,175,169
Group II (Cities 100,000-249,999)              171    25,571,226
Group III (Cities 50,000-99,999)               423    29,153,832
Group IV (Cities 25,000-49,999)                803    27,912,096
Group V (Cities 10,000-24,999)               1,867    29,581,897
Group VI (1) (Cities under 10,000)           8,735    26,310,716
Suburban Counties (1)                        1,817    62,146,326
Rural Counties (1)                           3,437    34,517,436

                                     Agencies participating in UCR
                                         hate crime reporting

                                         Number of
                                     participating    Population
Population group agencies                 agencies       covered

Total                                       12,073   247,246,683

Group I (Cities 250,000 and over)               68    51,702,693
Group II (Cities 100,000-249,999)              149    22,330,767
Group III (Cities 50,000-99,999)               371    25,781,927
Group IV (Cities 25,000-49,999)                699    24,367,427
Group V (Cities 10,000-24,999)               1,528    24,135,473
Group VI (1) (Cities under 10,000)           5,967    19,281,826
Suburban Counties (1)                        1,075    53,564,433
Rural Counties (1)                           2,216    26,082,137

(1) Includes universities and colleges, state police agencies, and/or
other agencies to which no population is attributed.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Federal Bureau of Investigation
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