11 Facts about Hate Crimes

1. There were 7,722 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 2006 – an 8% increase from 2005.
2. The large majority (52.2%) of the hate crimes were motivated by racial bias, followed by religious bias (17.6%) and sexual orientation bias (15.6).
3. Approximately 66.2% of racial bias was anti-black, while 21.3% were anti-white.
4. About 64.3% of religious bias was anti-Jewish, while 12.0% were anti-Islamic.
5. Most sexual orientation bias (62%) was directed at gay men.
6. Hate crime events in 2001 increased 15.5% from their level in 2000 in response to the wave of post-9/11 hate crimes targeting individuals or their property who were, or perceived to be, Middle Eastern or Muslims.
7. Only 1/3 of the victims of hate crimes report the incident to law enforcement.
8. The national debate over immigration has caused a sharp increase in violent hate crimes against Hispanics, regardless of their immigration status.
9. According to hate crime statistics published annually by the FBI, anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available.
10. The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 was passed by Congress in the wake of an outbreak of anti-homosexual violence in the late 1980s - it was the first federal civil rights law to include sexual orientation as a class.
11. Reporting under the federal hate crime act is voluntary and due to the controversial nature of collecting hate crime statistics, over one-third of police jurisdictions opt not to participate in the effort. As a result, it’s estimated that the FBI’s annual reporting of hate crime stats are off by thousands.

Sources:
FBI
National Crime Prevention Council
Esquire
Southern Poverty Law Center