The Leadership Conference is working diligently to see that Tom Perez is confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Labor. Perez is an eminently qualified public servant and consensus builder who has dedicated his career to ensuring that all individuals are treated fairly and have the opportunity to succeed. He has served with integrity and distinction at the local, state and national level, compiling an outstanding record of achievement. FBI Hate Crimes Data Released
Feature Story by Corrine Yu - 11/4/2002
The FBI has released its annual publication, "Crime in the United States 2001." Since 1996, the Bureau has included a separate section summarizing the HCSA data for the year as part of this report. Highlights from the 2001 hate crime data include the following:- While the overall number of crimes reported to the FBI in 2001 increased slightly (2.1%), reported hate crimes increased dramatically from 8,063 in 2000 to 9,726 in 2001 (a 20.6% increase).
- In 2001, 1,663 more hate crime incidents were reported than in 2000. Racial bias again represented the largest percentage of bias-motivated incidents (44.9%), followed by Ethnic/National Origin Bias (21.6%), Religious Bias (18.8%), Sexual Orientation Bias (14.3%), and Disability Bias (0.3%).
- 1,043 anti-Semitic crimes were reported, a slight decrease from 1,119 in 2000. Overall, crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions comprised 10.7% of all the bias-motivated crimes - and 57% of the religious-based crime incidents.
- The number of reported "anti-Islamic" crimes increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001. Since the FBI does not collect statistics on anti-Arab or anti-Sikh hate crimes, we can only assume that this dramatic increase of over 1600% reflects the backlash in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
- The number of national law enforcement agencies reporting to the FBI in 2001 increased slightly from 11,690 to 11,987.
- The five states with the highest numbers of hate crime were: California (2,246 incidents, 23.1% of total reported incidents), New Jersey (767, 7.9%), New York (712, 7.3%), Massachusetts (584, 6.0%), and Michigan (442, 4.5%). These five states comprise 48.8% of all incidents reported in the United States.
- Hawaii was the only state that did not participate in reporting hate crime to the FBI; Alabama participated but reported zero hate crime for the entire year.
