Infographic: Gaps in Hate Crimes Reporting
Hate Crimes Statistics
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report collects “incident reports” submitted by various agencies across the country. These agencies are primarily composed of law enforcement agencies and state universities.
An incident report is submitted when a non-misdemeanor offense is investigated by an officer as a hate crime. These types of events fall into categories that include murder, sexual assault, battery, and destruction of property.
Hate-related incidents in 2014 and 2015
Hover over a state to see the number of hate crimes reported in 2014 and 2015.
Types of Hate Crimes
The FBI reports the type of bias that motivated the offender. The chart below groups the past six years of reported Hate Crimes for each bias category. Prior to 2013, gender-identity was not reported.
While informative, the Uniform Crime Report reveals some surprising discoveries that directly affect the accuracy of the state of hate crimes in the United States.
Reports submitted from 2014 to 2016.
The UCR statistics recorded the number of quarterly reports submitted by each agency. Although many law enforcement agencies participate in UCR reporting, reporting policies require one quarter in order to be included in the annual hate crimes statistics. Below is a map revealing the percentage of quarterly reports submitted by participating law enforcement agencies in each state.
A value less than 100% indicates one or more agencies have not submitted at least one quarter of reporting data.
The option to participate in the Uniform Crime Report program presents the concern of potential gaps in reporting coverage. The map below shows the percentage of Law Enforcement Agencies participating in each state.
Compare the data
As the percentage of participating law enforcement agencies decreases, the greater the chance that hate crimes are going unreported.
A different picture
The National Crime Victimization Survey provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders. The survey obtains data from a nationally representative sample of about 90,000 households, comprising nearly 160,000 persons, on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States.
Data from the NCVS provides a vastly different picture of the level of hate-related incidents occurring in the United States.
Are Hate Crimes Actually Decreasing?
Statistics published by the FBI’s Hate Crimes Report are likely not catching a majority of estimated actual hate crimes. While the number of incidents reported by victims shift drastically, the Hate Crimes Report remains relatively unaffected.
About the Data
FBI Hate Crimes Statistics
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program collects and publishes compilations about bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation. Submitted by 15,494 (2014) law enforcement agencies, the data provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders and locations of hate crimes. However, the UCR Program does not estimate offenses for the jurisdictions of agencies that do not submit reports.
National Crime Victimization Survey
The National Crime Victimization Survey is the nation’s primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of about 90,000 households, comprising nearly 160,000 persons, on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. Each household is interviewed twice during the year. The survey enables BJS to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, theft, household burglary and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial or ethnic groups, city dwellers and other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.