Facts and Statistics

  • Hate crimes are increasing every year – 7,649 hate crime incidents were reported by 12,711 police agencies across the country – up from 7,489 reported by 11,909 agencies in 2003 (FBI)
  • A breakdown of the single-bias incidents by the type of bias revealed that 51.4 percent were motivated by racial bigotry, 17.9 percent were caused by religious intolerance, 16.6 percent were the result of a sexual-orientation bias, and 13.7 percent were triggered by an ethnicity/national origin bias. The remainder involved a bias against a disability. (FBI)
  • Just under 30% of these crimes occurred at places of residence.
  • FBI analysis of hate crime reports from 1997-1999 indicated that the majority of hate crimes motivated by religious bias involved property damage, while the majority of hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and disability involved violence.
  • CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, received 1,717 reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S. during the period immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Nearly 62 percent of those (1,062) involved violence, threats, or hate messages and harassment (CAIR, Stereotypes and Civil Liberties: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2002).
  • Transgender people are still not protected by most hate crime legislation, and violent attacks on transgender people are all too often misreported as attacks against “a man dressed as a woman” or vice versa. According to the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, between 1970 and the middle of 2003, there were 207 recorded killings of transgender people. The deadliest year on record during this time period was 2002.
  • Because of fear, ignorance, intimidation, misreporting, and other factors, all of the above statistics are highly likely to be underestimates.