United States of America
The United States regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Its hate crime laws contain general penalty enhancement and substantive offence provisions. The United States Hate Crime Statistics Act requires the collection and publication of hate crime data. The authorities responsible for data collection are the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hate crime data are published annually.
How hate crime data is collected
The Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Department of Justice collects administrative records for federal crimes through the Federal Justice Statistics Program, relying on records of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the U.S. Sentencing Commission. It is possible to identify the number of defendants charged with a federal hate crime, and the number of defendants who were sentenced under a federal hate crime offence or who received a hate crime sentencing enhancement.
As of 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is in the process of transitioning all federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies nationwide to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by 1 January 2021. The NIBRS includes a designated field for law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes. Reporting via the NIBRS will improve the quality, reliability and accuracy of hate crime data.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics conducts a regular National Crime Victimization Survey, with the most recent data on hate crime victimization available for the 2015-2017 period.
Official Data
Hate crimes recorded by police
The breakdown below refers only to offences with one recorded bias motivation. An additional 257 offences committed with two or more bias motivations were reported but are not presented here.
National developments
The Department of Justice's (DoJ) Office of Justice funded two reports that give new insight into how often youths and members of the Latino community in the U.S. experience and witness bias-motivated incidents, such as bullying or harassment, and hate crimes. The findings can help policymakers, law enforcement, school professionals and service organizations improve the targeting and content of prevention and intervention programmes. The first study, "Comprehensive Measure of Youth Experiences with Bias Victimization: Findings from the Youth Bias Victimization Questionnaire (YBVQ)" developed a new survey tool to measure youth bias victimization, from bullying to hate crimes. The second study, "Understanding and Measuring Bias Victimization Against Latinos" showed significant differences between men and women on some of the more serious events, such as physical assaults and assaults with a weapon, but not on the overall rate. Only 18.2 per cent of Latinos experiencing bias crimes sought help from any formal authority (e.g., police, medical providers, victim service providers or attorneys) while 68.1 per cent of victims sought informal help, generally from friends or family. An article summarizing the two studies with links to each is available here.
The DoJ's Community Relations Service supported campus community groups as they work to prevent and respond to bias incidents and hate crimes on campuses and in cities throughout the country. It facilitated regular sessions with a planning group comprised of campus police officers and college officials, and conducted training events at the college's LSC-University Park campus for approximately 70 campus law enforcement officers. The training events, which can be delivered both in-person and remotely, will help improve communication and collaboration with Sikh American and Muslim American communities. More information about the training programme is available here.
International reports
No information is available.
Key observation
ODIHR observes that the United States has not reported information on prosecuted and sentenced hate crime cases to ODIHR.
