Box Turtle Bulletin

FBI Reports Massive Surge In Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes in 2015

The FBI has issued its latest set of Hate Crime Statistics for 2015, revealing a staggering 67% increase in Anti-Muslim attacks in 2015 over the year before. In 2014, there were 154 anti-Muslim incidents involving 178 criminal offenses, 184 victims and 148 known offenders. For 2015, there were 257 anti-Muslim incidents involving 301 criminal offenses, 307 victims and 228 known offenders.

That eye-popping increase is likely to garner the lion’s share of the attention, as it should, given it is the most notable increase among all of the categories tracked by the FBI. Other categories seeing an increase include hate crimes based on Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry, which rose from 3,216 incidents in 2014 to 3,310 incidents in 2015. Hate crimes based on Sexual Orientation rose from 1,017 to 1,053 incidents in the past year, and hate crimes based on Gender Identity rose from 98 to 114.

But of all of the categories of hate crimes being tracked by the FBI, no other group comes close to experiencing the dramatic 67% increase in victimization that the Muslim community has. Overall, the FBI reports that there were 5,850 hate crime incidents in 2015, compared to 5,479 in 2014, an increase of 6.8%. But despite Muslims making up only about 1% of the total U.S. population, their dramatically increased hate crime victimization over the past year accounted for nearly a quarter of the total rise in hate crimes.

Hate Crimes Based On Sexual Orientation Most Violent, On The Rise

The FBI has released its annual Hate Crime Statistics for 2011 this morning, and those numbers contain some good news and some bad news. The good news is that hate crime offenses overall have gone down in 2011 when compared to 2010. The bad news is that hate crimes based  on sexual orientation have actually gone up during the same period.

The FBI collects three sets of hate crime statistics: hate crime incidents, offenses, and victims. According to the FBI’s definition, an incident represents a single occurrence of one or more hate crime offenses (each offense being an assault, a robbery, an act of vandalism, etc.) against one or more victims. The statistics for 2011 look like this (with 2010 data in parentheses):

One argument against hate crimes as a category claims that the distinction singles out minority populations for special treatment. But a quick look at the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics shows that not to be the case. Among the 2,917 incidents in 2011 based on race, 577 were anti-white. Anti-Protestant hate crime incidents made up 49 of the 1,233 religious based hate crime incidents, and 17 anti-heterosexual hate crime incidents were among the 1,508 based on sexual orientation.

Hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation continue to be the most physically violent. This year, three of the four murders counted in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics were anti-gay male murders (the other was anti-black). When you look at physically violent hate crimes against persons (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and aggravated and simple assault) as a percentage of all hate crimes for each protected category, half of all hate crimes based on sexual orientation are personally violent ones:

Mixed news on hate crimes

Hate crimes statistics is a difficult subject to correctly evaluate. Reporting by local agencies has, until recently, been voluntary and often subject to arbitrary interpretation, so year to year or location to location comparisons must be considered with the understanding that any specific anomaly in long term trending may not accurately reflect a real or significant shift in either social attitudes or behavior.

I think that it is evident and obvious that hate crimes are under-reported. Behaviors that mirror biases of individual officers are more likely to be treated as “no big deal”, and, as we have seen, even people who see themselves as supportive can dismiss hostility as “a natural reaction.” And, of course, most hate crimes are only known when the victim is willing to come forward and report a crime or file a complaint.

Reporting of hate crimes based on sexual orientation are probably complicated by a greater lack of recognition or by a greater hesitancy to come forward than other animus related crimes. However, with increased social acceptance for gay people, both institutional dismissiveness and fear of recognition have decreased which probably has resulted in a higher frequency of incidents being reported or tracked.

Okay, that’s enough caveats. Now the positive news.

The FBI has released the statistics on hate crimes reported during 2009, and fewer incidents were reported than previous years in nearly every category. (FBI)

While the number of law enforcement agencies submitting data to us increased—topping off at 14,222—the number of hate crime incidents reported for 2009 (6,604) was down from 2008. The number of reported victims (8,336) has also gone down. (“Victims,” in this case, can be individuals, businesses, institutions, and society as a whole.)

Sexual Orientation based crimes were significantly fewer than in prior years. Comparison to 2008 may not reflect a trend, as Proposition 8’s fear-based anti-gay campaign is believed to have generated an increased hostility towards gay people, but with 1,436 incidents, this is lower than both 2008 and 2007.

Hate crimes based on race, religion, and ethnicity were also lower than in the past two years. This is wonderful news.

However, there is also some disturbing news to be found among the data.

When considering just violent crimes (Murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and simple assault), sexual orientation based crimes are up, both in incidents and in percentage of hate crimes. As in prior years, reported anti-gay hate crimes tended to include physical violence significantly more often than those of other reported demographics. This may reflect either a greater degree of animus, or it may demonstrate that reporting agencies are less likely to take non-violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation as serious or worth reporting.

Violent hate crimes based on sexual orientation went from 695 in 2008 to 725 in 2009. This reflects a slight increase in the percentage of violent hate crimes that are sexual orientation related as well as a slight increase in the percentage of sexual orientation hate crimes that were violent.

Additionally, the percentage of populations that are impacted should be considered when looking at hate crime statistics. Hate crimes, especially violent hate crimes, target individual members of the gay community to a greater extent than some other minority communities. (Jews are also disproportionately impacted, with damage and vandalism being the dominant hate crime).

For example, African Americans make up about 12.4% of the population and there were 819 reported cases of anti-black assaults. The GLB community, on the other hand, comprise maybe around 5.5% of the total population and suffered 712 reported cases of assault.

So while it is good news that the total hate crime incidences reported in 2009 – including those based on anti-gay animus – were down, it remains troubling that so many anti-gay hate crimes continue to be violent.

Hate Crimes Based On Sexual Orientation Still Most Violent

One trend that we can legitimately identify in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics for 2008 is this: hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation continue to be the most physically violent. When you look at physically violent hate crimes against persons (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and aggravated and simple assault) as a percentage of all hate crimes for each protected category, those who are singled out based on sexual orientation are really taking it on the chin:

Sexual Orientation Hate Crimes: Did They Really Go Up?

The FBI has issued its annual Hate Crimes Statistics for 2008, and there’s a lot of talk about how much the statistics for hate crimes based on sexual orientation went up. But before we jump on that bandwagon, Andrew Sullivan points us to an important caution by Mark Thompson who sees what he considers an “annual misuse of hate crime statistics“:

Every year around this time, the FBI publishes its statutorily-mandated annual report on hate crime statistics.  Like clockwork, every year that report gets misused no matter what the FBI does to discourage that misuse (previous examples of misuse here).  This year is no exception, as several prominent liberal sites have picked up on the lede that this year\’s report shows a “sharp increase” in anti-gay hate crime while also noting that race-based hate crimes barely decreased at all.

The problem is that these particular FBI statistics are virtually useless for evaluating year-to-year trends – always have been, always will be.  This year, the FBI itself went out of its way to warn against such readings, stating “our Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program doesn\’t report trends in hate crime stats—yearly increases or decreases often occur because the number of agencies who report to us varies from year to year.”

Reporting hate crimes to the FBI is voluntary.  Local law enforcement agencies aren’t required to participate in the FBI’s hate crime statistics gathering program, nor do they receive any federal funds when they do so. This means that year t0 year, different segments of the total U.S. population are represented in the hate crime statistics depending on whether the local law enforcement agency chooses to participate.

In 2003, 11,909 law enforcement agencies covering 82.3% of the population participated in the program. In 2008, that number reached a record high of 13,690 agencies covering 88.6% of the population. By the way, that’s up from 13,241 last year, in which 86.3% of the population was covered. Meanwhile, the U.S. added an estimated 2.4 million people to the overall population according the the U.S. Census Bureau.

All of that together is a complicated way of noting that the population covered by the 2008 hate crimes statistics is 3.4% larger than that covered by the 2007 statistics. This means that even if hate crimes went up 3.4% over last year, it means that the rate of hate crimes is effectively unchanged.

So having said all that, let’s look at the hate crimes statistics themselves. The FBI collects three sets of hate crime statistics: hate crime incidents, offenses, and victims. According to the FBI’s definition, an incident represents a single occurrence of one or more hate crime offenses (each offense being an assault, a robbery, an act of vandalism, etc.) against one or more victims. The statistics for 2008 look like this (2007 data in parentheses):

From a raw numerical standpoint, hate crimes went up broadly in most categories (race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.)  and by most measures (incidents, offenses and victims). So now it’s time to factor in the growth of reporting agencies as well as the growth of the overall U.S. population. And to try to discern longer-term trends, let’s go back to 2000 and see what it all looks like. The following graphs show what the hate crimes data looks like over the past decade as a proportion to the size of the population covered in those respective years.

The most notable trend can be seen in reported hate crimes based on race., which have been decreasing dropping through most of the decade. Also notable is the slow but inconsistently lowering of hate crimes based on ethnicity following a huge spike in 2001, caused by a large surge in crimes against people of Middle Eastern backgrounds following 9/11. (Anti-Islamic sentiment also contributed to a spike in religious-based hate crimes the same year.)

But for hate crimes based on sexual orientation, the message appears mixed. One might be tempted to conclude that there has been a slight overall rise in hate crimes based on sexual orientation over the past three years. But given the many issues which contribute to inaccuracies in reporting of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, it is virtually impossible to categorically announce such a trend, as many other web sites have done. The kind of changes that we’re seeing year-to-year amount to statistical noise are clouded by many factors including:

• Changes in law enforcement agencies who choose to volunteer in the voluntary reporting program. Each year, some drop out as others are added, all with different demographics in their populations).
• Differences in how investigators are trained to investigate hate crime bias, as well as inconsistencies in how prosecutors pursue hate crime enhancements.
• Differences in state law, where many states do not cover sexual orientation in their hate crime statutes, giving local investigators and prosecutors little incentive to even investigate and report bias motivation where sexual orientation is concerned. We delved into that in greater detail in 2006 here.
• Many local jurisdictions are increasingly sensitive to hate crime bias based on sexual orientation. Increases in reports of hate crimes based on sexual orientation may merely reflect better reporting of hate crimes, and not a rise in the actual number or rate of such crimes.

And with this years’ passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, observable trends over the next several years will be massively complicated as aspects of the law dealing with local assistance and reporting go into effect. With all these factors in play, it would take a considerable swing to be able to discern a real trend in hate crimes based on sexual orientation. That large swing isn’t there, and any attempt to divine a trend based on sexual orientation is unjustified. Mark Thompson is right. There just isn’t quite enough there there.

But there is one disturbing trend that you can legitimately draw from the latest hate crime statistics: hate crimes based on sexual orientation are noticeably more violent than crimes motivated by other biases.

Christian Reconstructionist Decries “Christian Bashing”

Speaking of crying “persecution!”, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, a.k.a. Christian Reconstructionist Gary Cass, has released a press statement outlining what they call the top ten examples of “Christian bashing” for 2008. Here are Cass’s and his porn-stache’s top ten:

10: Jack Black Musical Video
9: Bill Maher Gratuitously Attacks Pope
8: ESPN Anchor Dana Jacobson’s “F— Jesus” Remark
7: Minnesota University Professor Desecrates Communion
6: “Religulous” the movie
5: Chaplains Fired for Praying in Jesus’ Name
4: Colorado Law Criminalizes the Bible
3: Barack Obama Defames Christianity
2: Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin Is Attacked

Okay, it’s mostly jokes, legitimate political commentary, distortions of legal moves and comments — that is what he calls “Christian bashing.” But you see, under Cass’s Reconstructionist America, none of this would be allowed. And what comes in at number one?

#1: Radical Homosexuals Assault Prop 8 Marriage Supporters in California

During and after the November campaign stories flooded in of pro-Prop 8 signs being taken, people verbally and physically assaulted, church property and private automobiles vandalized, and person’s jobs and pastor’s lives threatened simply for exercising their right to campaign and vote in support of traditional marriage.

While all acts of violence and vandalism are deplorable, Cass is taking the time-honored tactic of taking small, isolated incidents and treating them as if they are a part of a nationwide orgy of violence. Official statistics, however, paint a very different picture. According to the FBI, hate crimes against gays and lesbians continued to increase in 2007, contradicting the overall trend of fewer hate crimes since 2006. Crimes based on sexual orientation very nearly tied those based on religion for second place:

But as we noted earlier, hate crimes based on sexual orientation continue to be the most violent by far. Attacks based on sexual orientation are much more likely to be physically violent than in any other category:

As so-called “Christians” continue to shed their crocodile tears over minor albeit deplorable incidents, real people are dying. But so far, so-called “Christian” leaders have still remained silent. It has been nearly a year since Lawrence King’s brutal shooting, and nobody from Focus On the Family, as just one example, has yet to offer a single comment on his death. Even though they know they ought to.

If Christian leaders want to be taken seriously, they should lead by example, and decry the real bashing taking place in America, not the phoney hysteria Cass is trying to whip up. He claims that “Every day in America serious Christians face increasing hostility at work, school, and in the culture because they stand for their faith and values.” And gays aren’t? When’s the last time you heard of a Christian in America being gang raped because of a sticker on her car?

2007 Hate Crime Report: Sexual Orientation Hate Crimes Increase, Most Violent

The FBI just released its hate crime report for 2007. While hate crimes overall decreased slightly from 2006, crimes based on sexual orientation increased during the same period. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation also continue to be the most violent, with more than half of all hate crime murders in 2007 attributed to sexual orientation.

Hate crimes based on biases against transgender persons are not explicitly included in the FBI’s hate crimes statistics. It is unclear whether any of the bias crimes tracked according to sexual orientation include gender identity or expression.

Here is the overall breakdown of hate crime offenses for 2007 compared to 2006:

Overall, hate crime offenses in 2007 went down slightly from 2006. Hate crime offenses based on religion fell by 8% from 2006. More than two-thirds of those reports are anti-Jewish offenses. Hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation now statistically tie those based on religion.

Of nine murders logged as hate crime incidents in 2007, five were attributed to sexual orientation, two to race, and two to ethnicity/national origin. In 2006 there were only three hate crime murders reported by the FBI. All of those were on the basis of race. But as we reported last year, a number of known hate crime murders based on sexual orientation did not make it into the FBI’s hate crime statistics that year.

Hate crime offenses based on sexual orientation continue to be the most physically violent:

These FBI statistics rely on the voluntary cooperation of local law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes which occur in their jurisdictions. This reporting is neither mandatory nor funded. So not all agencies participate, and those that do often do so inconsistently. For more information on how this occurs, please see our report, Federal Hate Crime Statistics: Why the Numbers Don’t Add Up.

This year, there were 13,241 law enforcement agencies participating in the Hate Crimes reporting system, covering 260,229,972 of the U.S. population. That compares to 12,620 law enforcement agencies in 2006 covering 255,086,543 of the U.S. population.

Of the five bias categories tracked by the FBI, two of them are not covered by the current federal hate crimes law. Disability is one of those categories. Can you guess the other one?

Update: I’ve updated this post to reflect that the statistics are these statistics are of hate crime offenses. The FBI maintains three sets of statitics: Hate crime incidents, offenses and victims. Multiple offenses (i.e. assault and robbery) can occur in the same hate crime incident involving one or more victims. The breakout for each category is as follows:

Crimes Based on Sexual Orientation Most Violent

Here’s a trend which continues to hold true:

Out of all the major categories, hate crime incidents motivated by sexual orientation are more likely to be crimes against persons (i.e. violent crimes) as opposed to crimes against property (robbery, vandalism, etc.). Only Ethnicity come close, and that is largely due to the recent surge in anti-Hispanic hate crimes for 2006.

But Hispanics and other ethnicities are currently protected by federal hate crimes laws. So is religion. Disability isn’t covered. And the same is true for one other category. Can you guess which one?

See also:

Hate Crime Statistics Released for 2006

Hate Crime Statistics Released for 2006

The FBI’s latest hate crime statistics are out for 2006. Here’s what it looks like compared to 2005:

Overall, hate crimes in 2006 went up a little more than 8% since 2005. Hate crimes based on religion went up by 283 incidents (an increase of 22% from 2004). Nearly two-thirds of those reports are anti-Jewish. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation experienced the second-largest jump, up by 244 incidents (an increase of 21%).

These FBI statistics rely on the voluntary cooperation of local law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes which occur in their jurisdictions. This reporting is not mandatory, nor is it funded. So not all agencies participate, and those that do often do so inconsistently.

 This year, there were 12,620 law enforcement agencies participating in the Hate Crimes reporting system, covering 255,086,543 of the U.S. population. That compares to 12,417 agencies in 2004 covering 245,006,413 of the U.S. population. Since that represents only a 4% growth in the population represented by these statistics, the much larger increase in hate crime incidents ought to be seen in a very disturbing light.

One of the things that jumped out at me is that there were no murders recorded for sexual orientation. The other thing that jumped out at me is that there was one anti-black murder, and two anti-white murders. So much for the “special rights” argument against hate crime laws.

But the fact that there were no murders based on sexual orientation meas that Jason Gage wasn’t counted. Neither was Michael Sandy. Maybe in Gage’s case subsequent investigations demonstrated that it wasn’t really a hate crime. (We know that prosecutors in the Sandy Case pressed the case as a hate crime). Or maybe, local police just didn’t bother to do the follow-up investigation required to make such a determination. Or maybe they just didn’t bother to file the reports. We don’t know.

But I’ve noted before that problems like these contribute to a likely significant undercount of total hate crime incidents for all categories. As I report in Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count, it happens all too often.

See also:

Crimes Based on Sexual Orientation Most Violent

2005 Hate Crime Statistics

The FBI just released the Federal Hate Crime Statistics for 2005. Overall, the report shows some good trends.

There were 7,170 total hate crime incidents in 2005, which is down about 6% from 2004’s 7,649 hate crime incidents. For hate crimes based on sexual orientation, there were 1,018 hate crime incidents in 2005, which is down about 15% from the previous year’s 1,198 hate crime incidents motivated by sexual orientation. As I noted in my report, When Words Have Consequences, some of the harsh rhetoric surrounding the Federal Marriage Amendment and various state ballot initiatives may have raised the number of hate crimes against gays and lesbians during that contentious political year. If these numbers are to be believed, then perhaps 2005 represents a welcome cooling off period.

While this year’s statistics are encouraging, it should be noted that they are not comprehensive. Many jurisdictions refuse to participate in the hate crime reporting system. This omission can be critical. Barely 10% of Alabama’s population is covered by these statistics; Georgia improves slightly to 21% coverage (up from 18% in 2004), Mississippi falls to 30% coverage (from 35%) and Illinois holds stead at 40% coverage. With Hawaii’s continuing refusal to participate, this rounds out the bottom five states in hate crime reporting participation. Meanwhile, nine states and the District of Columbia are in the 100% club, and participating law enforcement agencies in seventeen states bring those states’ coverages to 95% or greater.

But what’s even more startling is this: none of the hate crimes in New York City or Phoenix were reported. Other notable no-shows include Louisville, Buffalo, Charleston, S.C., and surprisingly, Santa Fe, N.M. (where James Maestas was beaten). As I demonstrate in Federal Hate Crime Statistics: Why The Numbers Don’t Add Up, this uneven participation can very easily underestimate the scope of hate crimes against gays and lesbians. This also means that some very high-profile cases like the James Maestas beating in 2005 or Daniel Fetty’s murder in 2004 can go uncounted altogether.

One final note: In a demonstration that hate crime protections are not special protections for minority groups, the FBI reports that there were 828 anti-white, 57 anti-Protestant, and 21 anti-heterosexual hate crime incidents in 2005. This provides further proof that anybody can be a victim of a criminal act of intimidation based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability.

Hate Crimes and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Progress is slow here on this website, but then worthwhile progress is always slower than we’d like it to be. There are several new projects in the works, including a major examination of one of the most famous antigay tracts of the past few decades by one of most-quoted researchers. A sneak preview should be available in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile same-sex marriage continues to make the news in the U.S. Just last fall, Texas votors approved a ban against same-sex marriage in a lopsided vote during an off-year election. Just recently, the Virginia legislature voted to put a proposed constitutional ammendment before the votors in 2006. Several other states, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, are poised to take up the question as well. Meanwhile, efforts continue in Massachusetts to roll back gay marriage there.

Thirteen states voted to ban same-sex marriage in 2004, a year that saw significanltly hightened levels of antigay rhetoric. Some gay advocates predicted a backlash against gays and lesbians in the form of increased hate crimes, a prediction that was largely dismissed by opponents to marriage equality. Last fall the FBI released it’s Hate Crime Statistics for 2004 which showed somewhat mixed results nationwide. But in the states that voted to ban same-sex marriage that year, hate crimes against gays and lesbians rose significantly from the year before, strongly bucking the national trend. The FBI’s statistics bear out what we all instictively know: words have consequences, and sometimes those consequences are very serious indeed.

You can learn more about it in When Words Have Consequences: Hate Crimes and the Same Sex Marriage Debate.