Incidents and Offenses

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The UCR Program collects data about both single-bias and multiple-bias hate crimes. For each offense type reported, law enforcement must indicate one bias motivation. A single-bias incident occurs when one or more offense types within the incident are motivated by the same bias. A multiple-bias incident occurs when more than one offense type occurs in the incident and at least two offense types are motivated by a different bias.

  • In 2005, 12,417 law enforcement agencies submitted hate crime data to the UCR Program. (See Number of Participating Agencies and Population Covered.) Of those, 2,037 law enforcement agencies reported the occurrence of 7,163 hate crime incidents.
  • The 7,160 single-bias incidents involved 8,373 offenses, 8,795 victims and 6,800 offenders.
  • The 3 multiple-bias incidents reported in 2005 involved 7 offenses, 9 victims, and 4 offenders.
    (See Table 1.)

Single-Bias Incidents

An analysis of the 7,160 single-bias incidents reported in 2005 revealed the following:

  • 54.7 percent were racially motivated.
  • 17.1 percent were motivated by religious bias.
  • 14.2 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.
  • 13.2 percent stemmed from ethnicity/national origin bias.
  • 0.7 percent were prompted by disability bias.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Offenses by Crime Category

Among the 8,380 hate crime offenses reported:

  • 61.9 percent were crimes against persons.
  • 37.1 percent were crimes against property.
  • Approximately 1.0 percent were crimes against society.
    (Based on Table 2.)
    (See Data Collection in Methodology.)

Offenses by Bias Motivation

Of the single-bias hate crime offenses reported:

  • 56.0 percent were motivated by racial bias.
  • 15.7 percent were motivated byreligious bias.
  • 14.0 percent were motivated bysexual-orientation bias.
  • 13.7 percent were motivated by ethnicity or national origin bias.
  • 0.6 percent were biases against disability.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Racial Bias

In 2005, law enforcement agencies reported that 4,691 hate crime offenses were racially motivated. Of these offenses:

  • 68.2 percent were triggered by anti-black bias.
  • 19.9 percent were motivated by anti-white bias.
  • 4.9 percent resulted from anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
  • 4.9 percent were driven by bias against groups of individuals in which more than one race was reported (anti-multiple races, group).
  • 2.0 percent were motivated by anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Religious Bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,314 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

  • 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.
  • 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic.
  • 7.8 percent were anti-other (unspecified) religion.
  • 4.6 percent were anti-Catholic.
  • 4.4 percent were anti-Protestant.
  • 3.2 percent were anti-multiple religions, (i.e., groups of individuals of varying religions).
  • 0.4 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Sexual-Orientation Bias

In 2005, law enforcement agencies reported 1,171 hate crime offenses based on sexual- orientation bias.

  • 60.9 percent were anti-male homosexual.
  • 19.5 percent were anti-homosexual.
  • 15.4 percent were anti-female homosexual.
  • 2.3 percent were anti-bisexual.
  • 2.0 percent were anti-heterosexual.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Ethnicity/National Origin Bias

Of all reported hate crimes, 1,144 offenses were based on the perceived ethnicity or national origin of the victim.

  • 57.7 percent were anti-Hispanic.
  • 42.3 percent were anti-other ethnicity/national origin.
    (Based on Table 1.)

Disability Bias

There were 53 hate crime offenses based on disability.

  • 32 offenses were anti-mental disability.
  • 21 offenses were anti-physical disability.
    (See Table 1.)

By Offense Types

Of the 8,380 hate crime offenses in 2005:

  • 30.3 percent were intimidation.
  • 30.2 percent were destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • 18.7 percent were simple assault.
  • 12.7 percent were aggravated assault.
  • The remaining 8.2 percent of hate crimes were comprised of additional crimes against persons, property, and society.
    (Based on Table 2.)

Crimes Against Persons

Law enforcement reported 5,190 hate crime offenses as crimes against persons. By offense type:

  • 48.9 percent were intimidation.
  • 30.2 percent were simple assaults.
  • 20.5 percent were aggravated assaults.
  • 0.2 percent included 6 murders and 3 forcible rapes.
  • 0.3 percent involved the offense category other, which is collected only in the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
    (Based on Table 2.)

Crimes Against Property

  • The majority of the 3,109 bias-motivated offenses involving crimes against property (81.3 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • The remaining 18.7 percent consisted of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other crimes.
    (Based on Table 2.)

By Victim Type

An examination of the type of victim of property crimes revealed:

  • 53.6 percent were directed at individuals.
  • 9.8 percent were against businesses or financial institutions.
  • 8.9 percent were against government.
  • 6.8 percent were against religious organizations.
  • The remaining 20.9 percent were directed at other, multiple, or unknown victim types.
    (Based on Table 6.)

 

If you have questions about these data

Contact the Communications Unit of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division via e-mail at cjis_comm@leo.gov or by telephone at (304) 625-4995.