Community | November 23, 2009 | 3 comments

Anti-Gay And Religious-Motivated Crimes Up In 2008

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Reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply in 2008, according to FBI data released Monday.

Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion.

The largest category, racially motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.

Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay civil rights group, called the numbers unacceptable and said they showed the need for the expanded federal hate crimes law signed last month by President Barack Obama.

Among all categories of hate crimes, roughly a third are vandalism or property damage. About 30 percent involve intimidation of some kind, and another 30 percent were physical attacks.

The FBI does not compare year-to-year trends in hate crimes, saying the number of agencies reporting changes too much. In fact, the bureau cautioned that the increase reported Monday might well be due to more agencies tracking such incidents.

Overall, “the 2008 numbers are up slightly — 7,783 incidents and 9,691 victims” were reported last year. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation had the largest increase — nearly 11 percent. Hate crimes based on religion rose 9 percent and the “largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.” A breakdown of the 1,706 victims of sexual-orientation hate crimes:

– 57.5 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
– 27.3 percent were victims because of an anti-homosexual bias.
– 11.6 percent were victims because of an anti-female homosexual bias.
– 2.0 percent were victims because of an anti-heterosexual bias.
– 1.6 percent were victims because of an anti-bisexual bias.

The FBI notes that with the recent passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it will now “begin the process of adding the collection of hate crimes motivated by gender and gender identity and incorporating them into our annual report.”
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