Press Release

FACT SHEET FOR HATE CRIME STATISTICS, 2002

Distribution

• During 2002, state and local law enforcement agencies reported 7,462 hate crime incidents that involved 8,832 offenses.
• Of the reported 7,462 incidents of hate crime, 7,459 were single-bias incidents, and 3 were multiple-bias incidents; that is, they were motivated by more than one bias.
• Racial bias accounted for 48.8 percent of the single-bias incidents. Religious bias motivated 19.1 percent of the incidents, sexual-orientation bias motivated 16.7 percent, and bias against an ethnicity or national origin motivated 14.8 percent. Bias against a physical or mental disability was the basis for 0.6 percent of the single-bias incidents.

Victims

• There were 9,222 victims (which can be individuals, businesses, government, religious organizations, or society) of hate crimes in 2002.
• Of the victims, 9,211 were victims of single-bias incidents, and 11 were victims of multiple-bias incidents.
• Of the 9,211 victims of single-bias incidents, 49.7 percent were victims of racial bias, 18.0 percent were victims of religious bias, 16.4 percent were victims of sexual-orientation bias, 15.3 percent were targets of ethnicity/national origin bias, and less than 1 percent were victims of disability bias.
• Eleven of the hate crime victims were murdered.

Offenders

• There were 7,314 known offenders reported in connection with the 7,462 bias motivated incidents in 2002.
• Of the known offenders, 61.8 percent were white, 21.8 percent were black, 1.2 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.6 percent were American Indian/Alaskan native. Groups comprised of offenders of varying races made up 4.9 percent of the known offenders, and the races of 9.8 percent of the offenders were unknown.

Participation

• In 2002, 12,073 agencies contributed hate crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
• Among those participating agencies, 1,868 (15.5 percent) reported that at least one hate crime occurred in their jurisdictions.
• The number of agencies that submitted hate crime data to the UCR Program in 2002 increased slightly (0.7 percent) from the number of participants in 2001.