11 Facts about Hate Crimes

1. There were 7,789 hate crime offenses reported to the FBI in 2009.
2. The large majority (48.8%) of the hate crimes were motivated by racial bias, followed by religious bias (18.9%) and sexual orientation bias (17.8%).
3. About 70% of racial bias was anti-black, while 16.5% were anti-white.
4. Over 70 percent of religious bias was anti-Jewish, while 8.4% were anti-Islamic.
5. Most sexual orientation bias (55.1%) was directed at gay men.
6. Violence and hate crimes directed at LGBT people worsens in the early summer months when many cities around the country celebrate Pride Week.
7. Only 1/3 of the victims of hate crimes report the incident to law enforcement.
8. The national debate over immigration has caused a sharp increase in violent hate crimes against Hispanics, regardless of their immigration status.
9. Hate crimes against Latinos had already increased in each of the four years between 2003 to 2007.
10. The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 was passed by Congress in the wake of an outbreak of anti-homosexual violence in the late 1980s - it was the first federal civil rights law to include sexual orientation as a class.
11. Reporting under the federal hate crime act is voluntary and due to the controversial nature of collecting hate crime statistics, over one-third of police jurisdictions opt not to participate in the effort. As a result, it’s estimated that the FBI’s annual reporting of hate crime stats are off by thousands.