Racial bias prompted most hate crimes in '95.Six of 10 hate crimes reported in 1995 were racially motivated, according to a preliminary FBI report. The agency received reports of 7,947 hate crimes in 1995. Sixty-one percent were motivated by racial bias, 16 percent by religious bias, 13 percent by sexual orientation sexual orientation n. The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. bias, and 10 percent by ethnicity or national origin bias. Roughly 62 percent of the racially motivated crimes were perpetrated against African Americans and about 25 percent against whites. A large majority of the religiously motivated incidents--83 percent--targeted Jews. The most common hate crime reported was intimidation. Other offenses included vandalism, simple assault, and aggravated assault A person is guilty of aggravated assault if he or she attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another or causes such injury purposely, knowingly, or recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life; or attempts to cause or purposely or . Twenty people were victims of hatemotivated murder. The Justice Department began issuing annual hate crime reports after Congress passed the 1991 Hate Crime Statistics Act The Hate Crime Statistics Act, 28 USC 534, requires the Attorney General to collect data on crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The bill was signed into law by George H. W. . The preliminary 1995 statistics released in November came from more than 9,500 law enforcement agencies A law enforcement agency (LEA) is a term used to describe any agency which enforces the law. This may be a local or state police, federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). in 45 states and the District of Columbia District of Columbia, federal district (2000 pop. 572,059, a 5.7% decrease in population since the 1990 census), 69 sq mi (179 sq km), on the east bank of the Potomac River, coextensive with the city of Washington, D.C. (the capital of the United States). , covering 75 percent of the U.S. population. |
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