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Home Hate Crime 2014 Topic Pages 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. As of 2013, a multiple-bias incident is defined as an incident in which one or more offense types are motivated by two or more biases.

Important note about rape

In 2013, the FBI UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition and removed the term “forcible” from the offense name. The UCR Program now defines rape as follows:

Rape (revised definition): Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. (This includes the offenses of rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object as converted from data submitted via the National Incident-Based Reporting System [NIBRS].)

Rape (legacy definition): The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

The offenses of fondling, incest, and statutory rape are included in the crimes against persons, other category.

The revised and legacy rape totals are provided in Tables 2, 3, 4, 7, and 11 of Hate Crime Statistics, 2014. (See the Methodology for more information about this program change as well as others.)

Overview

  • In 2014, 15,494 law enforcement agencies participated in the Hate Crime Statistics Program. Of these agencies, 1,666 reported 5,479 hate crime incidents involving 6,418 offenses.
  • There were 5,462 single-bias incidents that involved 6,385 offenses, 6,681 victims, and 5,176 known offenders.
  • The 17 multiple-bias incidents reported in 2014 involved 33 offenses, 46 victims, and 16 offenders. (See Tables 1 and 12.)

Single-bias incidents

Analysis of the 5,462 single-bias incidents reported in 2014 revealed that:

  • 47.0 percent were racially motivated.
  • 18.6 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.
  • 18.6 percent were motivated by religious bias.
  • 11.9 percent stemmed from ethnicity bias.
  • 1.8 percent were motivated by gender-identity bias.
  • 1.5 percent were prompted by disability bias.
  • 0.6 percent (33 incidents) resulted from gender bias. (Based on Table 1.)

Offenses by bias motivation within incidents

Of the 6,385 single-bias hate crime offenses reported in the above incidents:

  • 48.3 percent stemmed from racial bias.
  • 18.4 percent were motivated by sexual-orientation bias.
  • 17.1 percent resulted from religious bias.
  • 12.4 percent were prompted by ethnicity bias.
  • 1.7 percent stemmed from gender-identity bias.
  • 1.5 percent resulted from bias against disabilities.
  • 0.6 percent (40 offenses) were prompted by gender bias. (Based on Table 1.)

Racial bias

In 2014, law enforcement agencies reported that 3,081 single-bias hate crime offenses were racially motivated. Of these offenses:

  • 63.5 percent were motivated by anti-Black or African American bias.
  • 22.8 percent stemmed from anti-White bias.
  • 5.5 percent resulted from anti-Asian bias.
  • 4.6 percent were motivated by anti-American Indian or Alaska Native bias.
  • 3.6 percent were a result of bias against groups of individuals consisting of more than one race (anti-multiple races, group).
  • 0.1 percent (4 offenses) were motivated by bias of anti-Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. (Based on Table 1.)

Sexual-orientation bias

In 2014, law enforcement agencies reported 1,178 hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation bias. Of these offenses:

  • 58.0 percent were classified as anti-gay (male) bias.
  • 23.6 percent were prompted by an anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (mixed group) bias.
  • 14.3 percent were classified as anti-lesbian bias.
  • 2.6 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias.
  • 1.5 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias. (Based on Table 1.)

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,092 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-biased offenses showed:

  • 58.2 percent were anti-Jewish.
  • 16.3 percent were anti-Islamic (Muslim).
  • 6.1 percent were anti-Catholic.
  • 4.7 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
  • 2.6 percent were anti-Protestant.
  • 1.2 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.
  • 11.0 percent were anti-other (unspecified) religion. (Based on Table 1.)

Ethnicity bias

Of the single-bias incidents, 790 offenses were committed based on the offenders’ biases toward the perceived ethnicity of the victims. Of these offenses:

  • 52.4 percent were anti-Not Hispanic or Latino bias. (Based on Table 1.)
  • 47.6 percent were anti-Hispanic or Latino bias.

Note, the term anti-not Hispanic or Latino does not imply the victim was targeted because he/she was not of Hispanic origin, but it refers to other or unspecified ethnic biases that are not Hispanic or Latino.

Gender-identity bias

Of the single-bias incidents, 109 offenses were a result of gender-identity bias. Of these:

  • 69 were anti-transgender.
  • 40 were anti-gender nonconforming. (Based on Table 1.)

Disability bias

There were 95 reported hate crime offenses committed based on disability bias. Of these:

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

Gender bias

There were 40 offenses of gender bias reported in 2014. Of these:

  • 28 were anti-female.
  • 12 were anti-male. (Based on Table 1.)

By offense types

Of the 6,418 reported hate crime offenses in 2014:

  • 27.2 percent were intimidation.
  • 26.4 percent were destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • 23.6 percent were simple assault.
  • 12.0 percent were aggravated assault.
  • The remaining offenses included additional crimes against persons and property. (Based on Table 2.)

Offenses by crime category

Among the 6,418 hate crime offenses reported:

  • 63.1 percent were crimes against persons.
  • 36.1 percent were crimes against property.
  • The remaining offenses were crimes against society. (Based on Table 2.) (See Data Collection in Methodology.)

Crimes against persons

Law enforcement reported 4,048 hate crime offenses as crimes against persons. By offense type:

  • 43.1 percent were intimidation.
  • 37.4 percent were simple assault.
  • 19.0 percent were aggravated assault.
  • 0.3 percent consisted of 4 murders and 9 rapes (all 9 rapes were submitted under the UCR Program’s revised definition of rape). (See Methodology for more details about changes in the definition of rape in the UCR Program.)
  • 0.1 percent involved the offense category other, which is collected only in the NIBRS. (Based on Table 2.)

Crimes against property

  • The majority of the 2,317 hate crime offenses that were crimes against property (73.1 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.
  • The remaining 26.9 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 53 offenses defined as crimes against society (e.g., drug or narcotic offenses or prostitution). (See Table 2.)

By victim type

When considering the type of victims among the reported 6,418 hate crime offenses:

  • 82.4 percent were directed at individuals.
  • 4.8 percent were against businesses or financial institutions.
  • 2.4 percent were against religious organizations.
  • 2.3 percent were against government.
  • 0.8 percent were against society/public.
  • The remaining 7.4 percent were directed at other/unknown/multiple victim types. (Based on Table 6.)