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Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: A reported 96 people with disabilities were victims of hate crimes, according the FBI’s latest Hate Crime Statistics report for 2014.

A reported 69 hate crime offenses were committed against people with mental disabilities, and another 26 targeted those with physical disabilities.

That data comes from law enforcement across the country who voluntarily submit it to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.

Stephen E. Kam: It is tragic...

Halpern: That’s Stephen Kam.

Kam: Every crime committed represents a person victimized.

Halpern: Kam is the chief of the FBI’s Civil Rights Unit, which addresses crimes committed against people based on biases such as disability.

Kam: The FBI really takes hate crimes very seriously. They’re the number-one priority of our Civil Rights Program.

Halpern: The FBI collaborates with organizations that advocate for people with disabilities...

Kam: ...in developing some of the training materials we use to provide to local police departments so that they can identify and classify hate crimes and report them to the uniform crime report.

Halpern: With FBI, This Week, I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau.