Section I—Hate Crime Statistics

Uniform Crime Reports: Hate Crime Statistics, Annual, 2002

An analysis of the 5,960 victims of hate crimes against persons and their respective offense types revealed that 52.1 percent were victims of intimidation, 30.1 percent were victims of simple assault, 17.4 percent were victims of aggravated assault, 0.2 percent were victims of murder, and 0.1 percent were victims of forcible rape. Victims of other offense types accounted for 0.2 percent of the victim total of crimes against persons. (Based on Table 2.)

Of the 3,213 victims of hate crimes against property, most (82.2 percent) were victims of destruction/damage/vandalism. Victims of robbery comprised 5.6 percent of the victim count for the crimes against property classification; burglary, 5.1 percent; larceny-theft, 4.9 percent; arson, 1.5 percent; and motor vehicle theft accounted for 0.3 percent. Victims of other offense types made up 0.5 percent of victims of crimes against property. (Based on Table 2.)

By Victim Type

Among the 2,823 hate crime offenses against property, a distribution of victim types showed that 53.8 percent of the offenses were directed at individuals, 10.0 percent at business or financial institutions, 6.7 percent at religious organizations, 6.0 percent at government, and 6.0 percent at society/public. Other, unknown, and multiple victim types accounted for 17.5 percent. (Based on Table 6.)

Offenders

As defined by the UCR hate crime program, the term known offender does not imply that the suspect's identity is known but that an attribute of the suspect is identified, which distinguishes him or her from an unknown offender. On the Hate Crime Incident Report form, reporting agencies can specify the number of offenders and, when possible, the offender's apparent race as the identifying attribute(s).

In 2002, law enforcement agencies reported a total of 7,314 known offenders associated with 7,462 bias-motivated incidents. (See Table 1.) Of the known offenders, 61.8 percent were white, 21.8 percent were black, 1.2 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 0.6 percent were American Indian or Alaskan Native. Groups of individuals representing various races accounted for 4.9 percent of all known offenders. The remaining 9.8 percent of offenders were of unknown races. (Based on Table 9.)

By crime category, 6,090 known offenders committed 5,960 hate crime offenses against persons. Of those offenders, 40.0 percent committed the offense of simple assault, 34.8 percent committed intimidation, and 24.6 percent committed aggravated assault. Data for 1,423 known offenders of the 2,823 hate crime offenses against property indicated that 65.1 percent of the offenders committed destruction/damage/vandalism, and 18.9 percent committed robbery. Sixty-one known offenders were responsible for the 49 crimes against society. (Based on Table 2.)

Location

A review of the data by location showed that 29.5 percent of all reported hate crime incidents occurred at homes or residences. The review also showed highways, roads, alleys, or streets as the location for another 20.0 percent of the reported incidents. More than 10 percent (10.6) of hate crime incidents took place at schools and colleges, and 6.2 percent happened in parking lots or garages. The location was unknown or unspecified for 12.3 percent of incidents. The remaining incidents, 21.6 percent, took place in a variety of locations. (See Table 10.)