By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY
Hate crimes in the USA increased 8% in 2006, but some groups, including gays, Muslims and people with mental disabilities, experienced larger spikes in attacks, the FBI says.
There were 7,722 hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2006. A hate crime is one motivated by a bias against a person's race, gender or other status.
Some significant increases:
•A 19% increase in crimes motivated by religious bias. Attacks on Muslims increased 22% to 156 last year. Attacks on Catholics increased by almost a third to 76. Almost seven in 10 were crimes against Jews, which were up 14% to 967.
•An 18% increase in crimes against gay men and lesbians to 1,195 in 2006.
•Attacks on people with mental disabilities were up 94% to 62 in 2006.
•Hate crimes against Hispanics were up 10% to 576 incidents.
"Hate crimes impacted a wide range of groups," says Jack Levin, a sociology and criminology professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "It seems as though Americans are more suspicious of any group or members of a group seen as foreign, outsiders or intruders."
Acts against Hispanics have risen by double digits for several years. Now, Levin says, anti-immigrant feelings have extended to other groups, such as Muslims and gays, that may be seen as a threat to mainstream culture.
The number of hate crimes reported in 2007 is likely to grow, Levin says, fostered by the immigration debate, concerns about terrorism and high-profile racial conflicts.
Hate crimes have gotten more attention this year, since six black students at a high school in Jena, La., were charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
The beating followed several racial encounters, including one in which white students hung nooses from a tree. That was not reported as a hate crime, partly because the FBI said the evidence did not prove the students were motivated by bias.
Since July, the Justice Department has investigated more than 40 noose hangings in schools and workplaces.
The FBI is the only agency that collects data on hate crimes, but numbers are flawed because victims are often afraid to report crimes and the number of police agencies participating fluctuates, says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
He cites a Bureau of Justice Statistics study that used police reports and surveys of 77,200 households from 2000 to 2003 to estimate that 191,000 hate crimes occur annually.
The FBI's 2006 hate crime stats.
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The FBI Uniform Crime Report numbers show that hate crimes against whites (including Hispanics) rose 7 percent while hate crimes against blacks increased 0.4 percent. Civil Rights leaders have criticized the newly released FBI hate crime statistics, saying they grossly underreports the number of hate crimes. The FBI cites 7,722 hate crimes in 2006 while the Justice Department report, released earlier this month, reports am average of 190,000 hate crimes per year over a span of about five years. The FBI numbers are based only on reports from law enforcement agencies that bother to report hate crimes. The Justice Department numbers are based on the law enforcement reports plus numerous surveys.
The Justice Department’s “National Criminal Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting” study has some surprises. For example, it shows that whites and Hispanics are more likely to be victims of hate crimes than blacks: "Per capital rates of hate crime victimization varied little by race or ethnicity: about 0.9 per 1,000 whites, 0.7 percent blacks, and 0.9 percent Hispanics." According to the less comprehensive FBI statistics, blacks were more likely than whites to be victims of hate crime.
A second importance difference is that the Justice Department numbers show that whites (including Hispanics) make up only 43 percent of hate crime offenders, even though they make up nearly 80 percent of the population. It identifies 38.8 percent of hate crime offenders as black, even though blacks make up only about 12 percent of the population. By contrast, the FBI numbers identified 58.6 percent of hate crimes offenders as white and 20.6 percent of hate crime offenders as black.
Still, the FBI hate numbers, while less comprehensive that the Justice Department numbers, are illuminating because the 2006 hate crimes numbers can be compared with overall crime statistics for 2006, also posted on the FBI website.
There were three racially motivated murder cases during 2006. If we eliminated racially motivated murders, we could reduce the number of Americans murdered each year from 17,034 to 17,031 a year. That's a 0.02 percent (two tenths of one percent) drop.
There were four racially motivated forcible rapes during 2006. If we eliminated racially motivated forcible rapes, we could reduce the number of forcible rapes a year from 92,455 to 92,451. That's a 0.004 percent (four hundredths of one percent) drop.
There were 607 racially motivated aggravated assaults during 2006. If we eliminated racially motivated aggravated assaults, we could reduce the number of racially motivated aggravated assaults per year from
855,088 to 854,481. That's a 0.07 percent (seven tenths of one percent) drop.
It would be more effective to enact laws to attach harsher sentences to interracial crime, regardless of motivation. For example, 573 of the 3,709 whites murdered in 2006 were murdered by blacks, while 208 of the 3,304 blacks murdered during the same year were murdered by whites. Eliminating these interracial murders would have a significant statistical impact.
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