Civil Rights Blog - Hate Crimes

Henry Quillin
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
4/3/19
Hate crimes statistics in America
          Discrimination is a huge problem in America, and with it comes violence and hate crimes. Hate crimes are defined by as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”  
          According to the FBI, in 2017(the most recent year with data available) there were 7,175 bias crimes, which targeted 8,493 victims based on their race and sexual orientation. There was more than a 17 percent rise in hate crimes across America compared to the previous year. In 2016 there had been 6,121 hate crimes reported. 2015 and 2016 had increases of 4.6 percent and 6.7 percent, so this 17 percent spike definitely does not follow the trend. The FBI said that the hate crime totals were comprised of 59 percent acts against a victim based on race, 20.6 percent because of religion and 15 percent for sexual orientation. 6
          While this data give us a rough estimate of how many hate crimes happen a year, there is a lot that is missing. The hate crime data collection process is not very accurate.  This is mostly because part local police departments aren’t required to send their numbers to the federal government. Because of this, a lot of the crimes aren't reported to the government.  For example Hawaii doesn’t report at all.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics conducts a hate crimes survey and estimates there could be up to 250,000 hate crimes a year. This is a ton compared to the 7,175 hate crimes reported by the FBI, and there are many factors that go into it:

  • In many states, local police send hate crime data to state agencies, who then submit the data to the FBI, but cases have been found where this process did not function properly.
  • More than half of victims don’t report to police.
  • Many police departments don’t send any data to the FBI, or claim to have no hate crimes.
  • Many police departments don’t do a good job investigating and tracking hate crimes. 
    • Victims have claimed that the police do not take hate crimes seriously enough







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