Uniform Crime Reporting Program Releases Hate Crime Statistics for 2002

Today, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program released its annual report, Hate Crime Statistics, 2002. The publication revealed that during 2002, 12,073 local and state law enforcement agencies reported 7,462 hate crime incidents (7,459 single-bias incidents and three multiple-bias incidents) that involved 8,832 offenses committed by 7,314 offenders.

A review of the 7,459 single-bias hate crime incidents showed that 48.8 percent were racially motivated, 19.1 percent were based on a bias against a religious group, 16.7 percent were motivated by a bias against a sexual orientation, 14.8 percent resulted from an ethnicity/national origin bias, and 0.6 percent were based on a disability bias.

Of the 8,832 hate crime offenses reported in 2002, 67.5 percent were crimes against persons, 32.0 percent were crimes against property, and less than 1 percent were crimes against society. Intimidation was the most frequently reported crime against persons at 52.1 percent. The offense of destruction/damage/vandalism, at 83.1 percent, was the most often reported crime against property.

According to the UCR Program, a victim may be either a person, a business, an institute, or society as a whole. In 2002, there were 9,222 victims of hate crimes. Of these, 9,211 were victims of single-bias incidents, and 11 were victims of multiple-bias incidents. A breakdown of the data regarding victims in single-bias incidents revealed that 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 victims of ethnicity/national origin bias, and less than 1 percent were victims of disability bias.

Eleven of the hate crime victims in 2002 were murdered. Four of these murders were associated with a racial bias, four with a sexual-orientation bias, two with an ethnicity/national origin bias, and one with a religious bias.

There were 7,314 known offenders reported in connection with the 7,462 hate crime incidents. The UCR Program collected data on these offenders’ races that showed that 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 individuals of varying races made up 4.9 percent of the offenders. The remaining 9.8 percent of offenders were of unknown races.

An analysis of the data detailing the locations of the hate crime incidents showed that the majority, 29.5 percent, occurred in residences or homes. Highways, roads, alleys, or streets accounted for the locations of 20.0 percent of the incidents; schools or colleges composed the settings of 10.6 percent of the incidents; and parking lots or garages made up the locations of 6.2 percent of the incidents. The remaining percent were incidents distributed among various locations.

Of the 12,073 participating agencies that submitted hate crime data to the UCR Program in 2002, approximately 15.5 percent reported at least one hate crime in their jurisdictions. The number of participating agencies in 2002 increased 0.7 percent from the number of agencies that participated in 2001.