Hate Crimes Study
Don’t expect to see this reported in the mainstream media but the US Justice Department has come out with a study on hate crimes. This study is based on statistics gathered between July of 2000 and December of 2003 examining more than 200,000 annually reported hate crimes.
Amazingly this report was issued in November of 2005, but is just now starting to poke out into some media outlets.
Now I am not a big fan of the concept of hate crimes. To me the idea that one kind of assault is a hate crime while another is not seems ridiculous. All crimes are hate crimes.
However the study makes some interesting observations.
The conclusion is that the most likely victim of a hate crime in the U.S. is a poor, young, white, single urban dweller. While race is far the No. 1 factor cited as the reason for hate crimes, blacks are slightly less likely to be victims and far more likely to be perpetrators.
The report defined a hate crime as when offenders choose a victim because of some factor (race, religion, ethnicity, religion, etc) and showed some evidence that they committed the crime for that reason.
About 56 percent of hate crimes were motivated in some way by race and most were accompanied by violence. Interestingly, while nine in 10,000 whites and nine in 10,000 Hispanics are victimized by hate crimes, only seven in 10,000 blacks are targets.
Now to be fair this is basically a statistical wash, but it does belie the common view that all hate crimes are against minorities at the hands of whites.
The report finds that there does not seem to be any particular factor that makes one more likely to be a victim of a hate crime, although age, marital status and economic standing did show some increases.
In fact, those between the ages of 17 and 20 were far more likely to be victims than in any other age group – with 16 incidents per 10,000 people.
People who never married saw 16 incidents per 10,000, and those separated or divorced, experienced 26 incidents per 10,000. Those with incomes less than $25,000 faced worse odds of victimization, 13 per 10,000, as well as those in urban areas, also 13 per 10,000.
Again, these numbers are more or less a wash, 7 out of 10,000 versus 26 out of 10,000 is a very small variance and it could be argued that other factors play a role in these numbers (IE urban areas have more crime, divorce often leads to violence, etc)
The report says 38 percent of all those reporting hate crimes said the attacker was black, and in 90 percent of those cases, the victim believed the offender's motive was racial.
In incidents involving white attackers, only 30 percent attribute the hate crime to race, while 20 percent attributed it to ethnicity.
The report says 40 percent of white hate crime victims were attacked by blacks, adding, "The small number of black hate crime victims precludes analysis of the race of persons who victimized them."
So it seems that the reality of 'hate crimes' is different that the common wisdom holds.
Amazingly this report was issued in November of 2005, but is just now starting to poke out into some media outlets.
Now I am not a big fan of the concept of hate crimes. To me the idea that one kind of assault is a hate crime while another is not seems ridiculous. All crimes are hate crimes.
However the study makes some interesting observations.
The conclusion is that the most likely victim of a hate crime in the U.S. is a poor, young, white, single urban dweller. While race is far the No. 1 factor cited as the reason for hate crimes, blacks are slightly less likely to be victims and far more likely to be perpetrators.
The report defined a hate crime as when offenders choose a victim because of some factor (race, religion, ethnicity, religion, etc) and showed some evidence that they committed the crime for that reason.
About 56 percent of hate crimes were motivated in some way by race and most were accompanied by violence. Interestingly, while nine in 10,000 whites and nine in 10,000 Hispanics are victimized by hate crimes, only seven in 10,000 blacks are targets.
Now to be fair this is basically a statistical wash, but it does belie the common view that all hate crimes are against minorities at the hands of whites.
The report finds that there does not seem to be any particular factor that makes one more likely to be a victim of a hate crime, although age, marital status and economic standing did show some increases.
In fact, those between the ages of 17 and 20 were far more likely to be victims than in any other age group – with 16 incidents per 10,000 people.
People who never married saw 16 incidents per 10,000, and those separated or divorced, experienced 26 incidents per 10,000. Those with incomes less than $25,000 faced worse odds of victimization, 13 per 10,000, as well as those in urban areas, also 13 per 10,000.
Again, these numbers are more or less a wash, 7 out of 10,000 versus 26 out of 10,000 is a very small variance and it could be argued that other factors play a role in these numbers (IE urban areas have more crime, divorce often leads to violence, etc)
The report says 38 percent of all those reporting hate crimes said the attacker was black, and in 90 percent of those cases, the victim believed the offender's motive was racial.
In incidents involving white attackers, only 30 percent attribute the hate crime to race, while 20 percent attributed it to ethnicity.
The report says 40 percent of white hate crime victims were attacked by blacks, adding, "The small number of black hate crime victims precludes analysis of the race of persons who victimized them."
So it seems that the reality of 'hate crimes' is different that the common wisdom holds.
posted by TR at 12:39 PM
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