Some high profile hate crime cases have been discussed in the news as of late, Jena 6, the hate crimes being investigated at Columbia University as well as the recent prosecution of a 22-year-old white supremacist named Gabriel Laskey was sentenced for his role in a hateful attack on Temple Beth Israel, a Jewish synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Today the FBI report was released and found an 8% rise in hate related crimes in 2006:
Here’s an overview of the findings…and you can delve into the full report for many more details:
- Incidents and Offenses: A total of 7,722 incidents and 9,080 offenses were reported by participating agencies in 2006.
- Offense Type: Nationwide, 5,449 offenses were classified as crimes against persons, with intimidation (46 percent) and simple assaults (31.9 percent) accounting for most crimes. There were three murders during the year. Of the 3,593 crimes against property, the overwhelming majority (81 percent) were acts of vandalism or destruction.
- Offenders: Of the 7,330 known offenders, 58.6 percent were white and 20.6 percent were black.
- Victims: A total of 9,652 victims were identified. More than half—52.0 percent—were targeted because of their race.
- Locations: Most incidents, 31 percent, took place near or at homes and residences. Another 18 percent occurred on highways or streets. For a general breakdown of offenses by state, see Table 11.
Victims are separated into categories, Race bias, Religious Bias, Sexual Orientation Bias, Ethnicity/national origin bias, and Disability bias.
Among the single-bias hate crime incidents in 2006, there were 5,020 victims of racially motivated hate crime.
The majority of the race bias crimes was 66.4 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-black bias.
Of the 1,750 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:
The majority of the religious bias was 65.4 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
In 2006, of the 1,472 victims targeted due to a sexual-orientation bias:
The majority of the sexual orientation bias was 62.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
Hate crimes motivated by the offender’s bias toward a particular ethnicity/national origin were directed at 1,305 victims. Of these victims:
The majority of the ethnicity/national origin bias was 62.8 percent were targeted because of an anti-Hispanic bias.
Of the 95 victims of a hate crime due to the offender’s bias against a disability:
The majority of the disability bias was 74 were targets of an anti-mental disability bias.
You can find out more about this report here.
You can find statistics going back to 1995 at this FBI page.
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