WASHINGTON – The FBI has just released its hate crime statistics report for 2012, and the numbers show that we as a nation still have a way to go toward alleviating these crimes that have such a devastating impact on communities.
For the 2012 time frame, law enforcement agencies reported 5,796 hate crime incidents involving 6,718 offenses, down from 2011 figures of 6,222 incidents involving 7,254 offenses. Also during 2012, there were 7,164 hate crime victims reported (which include individuals, businesses, institutions, and society as a whole), down from 7,713 in 2011.
The data contained in Hate Crime Statistics, 2012 is a subset of the information that law enforcement submits to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. The full hate crime report can be viewed on our website, but here are a few highlights:
- 48.3 percent of the 5,790 single-bias incidents were racially motivated, while 19.6 percent resulted from sexual orientation bias and 19 percent from religious bias.
- Of the 7,164 hate crime victims, 55.4 percent were victims of crimes against persons and 41.8 percent were victims of crimes against property. The remaining 2.8 percent were victims of crimes against society (like drug offenses, gambling, and prostitution).
- 39.6 percent of the victims of crimes against persons suffered simple assaults, while 37.5 percent were intimidated and 21.5 percent were victims of aggravated assault. (Law enforcement also reported 10 murders and 15 rapes as hate crimes.)
- An overwhelming majority—75.6 percent—of the victims of crimes against property were victimized by acts of destruction, damage, and/or vandalism.
- Of the 5,331 known offenders, 54.6 percent were white and 23.3 percent were black.
8 thoughts on “FBI says hate crimes declined in 2012, compared to 2011”
Given the oft reported black-on-black crime incidents, Black Panther activities at polls, and recently reported knock-out attacks by black gangs I expected to see a higher proportion of black offenders – but apparently it’s not “hate” when they target their own ethnic group?
I suspect the “hate” statistics are quite contrived – even searching on the FBI’s hate crime site the Black Panthers don’t readily appear as a driver of hate crimes. A search on the site for the Black Panthers did generate quite a few hits – but if you’re not looking for them they’re not readily visible.
At the end of the day, the report is probably “accurate” as long as one considers that the definition appears to be quite selective as to what is “hate”.
This is the definition of hate crime according to that same FBI web site you searched.
“A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, Congress has defined a hate crime 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, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.” Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.”
States are able to define hate crimes as they see fit. Not all states have created a hate crime law leaving it up to the federal government to charge and prosecute offenders. It has nothing to do with Black Panthers because they are no longer in existence. There is, however, a group that started calling itself the New Black Panthers. They are considered a hate group and are monitored by the FBI. But, to confuse them with the older group is inaccurate.
Thanks for the Black Panther vs. New Black Panther, I missed the memo on that.
You miss a lot living in the right wing world.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hate+crime
There you go.
Just what is a “Hate Crime”?
Pick on you just because of your race. Period!!
Annie – it must be more than just race. The article quotes percentages regarding sexual orientation, religious, crimes against society, assaults, and crimes against property.
It is interesting that the report says “Of the 5,331 known offenders, 54.6 percent were white and 23.3 percent were black.”
Is it the “knowing” part that skews this towards whites?