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Home Hate Crime 2010 Narratives Incidents and Offenses

Incidents and Offenses

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The Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects data about both single-bias and multiple-bias hate crimes.  For each offense type reported, law enforcement must indicate at least one bias motivation.  A single-bias incident is defined as an incident in which one or more offense types are motivated by the same bias.  A multiple-bias incident is defined as an incident in which more than one offense type occurs and at least two offense types are motivated by different biases.

  • In 2010, 1,949 law enforcement agencies reported 6,628 hate crime incidents involving 7,699 offenses.
  • There were 6,624 single-bias incidents that involved 7,690 offenses, 8,199 victims, and 6,001 offenders.
  • The 4 multiple-bias incidents reported in 2010 involved 9 offenses, 9 victims, and 7 offenders.  (See Table 1 and Table 12.)

Single-bias incidents

An analysis of the 6,624 single-bias incidents reported in 2010 revealed the following:

  • 47.3 percent were racially motivated.
  • 20.0 percent were motivated by religious bias.
  • 19.3 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.
  • 12.8 percent stemmed from ethnicity/national origin bias.
  • 0.6 percent were prompted by disability bias.  (Based on Table 1.)

Offenses by bias motivation within incidents

Of the 7,690 single-bias hate crime offenses reported in the above incidents:

  • 48.4 percent stemmed from racial bias.
  • 19.1 percent were motivated by sexual-orientation bias.
  • 18.3 percent resulted from religious bias.
  • 13.5 percent were prompted by ethnicity/national origin bias.
  • 0.6 percent resulted from biases against disabilities.  (Based on Table 1.)

Racial bias

In 2010, law enforcement agencies reported that 3,725 single-bias hate crime offenses were racially motivated.  Of these offenses:

  • 69.8 percent were motivated by anti-black bias.
  • 18.2 percent stemmed from anti-white bias.
  • 5.7 percent were a result of bias against groups of individuals consisting of more than one race (anti-multiple races, group).
  • 5.1 percent resulted from anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
  • 1.2 percent were motivated by anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias.  (Based on Table 1.)

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement.  A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

  • 65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
  • 13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
  • 9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
  • 4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
  • 3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
  • 3.3 percent were anti-Protestant. 
  • 0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.  (Based on Table 1.)

Sexual-orientation bias

In 2010, law enforcement agencies reported 1,470 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias.  Of these offenses:

  • 57.9 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias.
  • 27.4 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias.
  • 11.4 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias.
  • 1.4 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.
  • 1.9 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias.  (Based on Table 1.)

Ethnicity/national origin bias

Of the single-bias incidents, 1,040 offenses were committed based on the perceived ethnicity or national origin of the victim.  Of these offenses:

  • 65.5 percent were anti-Hispanic bias.
  • 34.5 percent were anti-other ethnicity/national origin bias.  (Based on Table 1.)

Disability bias

There were 46 reported hate crime offenses committed based on disability bias.  Of these:

  • 24 offenses were classified as anti-mental disability.
  • 22 offenses were reported as anti-physical disability.  (See Table 1.)

By offense types

Of the 7,699 reported hate crime offenses in 2010:

  • 30.1 percent were destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • 29.0 percent were intimidation.
  • 21.8 percent were simple assault.
  • 11.5 percent were aggravated assault.
  • 7.5 percent were comprised of additional crimes against persons, property, and society.  (Based on Table 2.)

Offenses by crime category

Among the 7,699 hate crime offenses reported:

  • 62.7 percent were crimes against persons.
  • 37.2 percent were crimes against property.
  • The remainder were crimes against society.  (Based on Table 2.)  (See Data Collection in Methodology.)

Crimes against persons

Law enforcement reported 4,824 hate crime offenses as crimes against persons.  By offense type:

  • 46.2 percent were intimidation.
  • 34.8 percent were simple assault.
  • 18.4 percent were aggravated assault.
  • 0.2 percent consisted of 7 murder and nonnegligent manslaughters and 4 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 2,861 hate crime offenses that were crimes against property—81.1 percent—were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • The remaining 18.9 percent of crimes against property consisted of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other crimes.  (Based on Table 2.)

Crimes against society

There were 14 offenses defined as crimes against society (e.g., drug or narcotic offenses or prostitution).

By victim type

When considering hate crime offenses by the type of victims reported:

  • 81.6 percent of reported offenses were directed at individuals.
  • 4.5 percent were against businesses or financial institutions.
  • 3.5 percent were against government.
  • 2.6 percent were against religious organizations.
  • 0.2 percent were against society.
  • The remaining 7.6 percent were directed at other, multiple, or unknown victim types.  (Based on Table 6.)