On October 25, the FBI released its annual report, "Crime in the United States 2003." Since 1996, the Bureau has included a separate section summarizing hate crime data, collected under the 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act as part of this report. The Hate Crime section of the 516-page FBI report is available at: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/pdf/03sec2.pdf (Pages 65-68).

The FBI's 2002* jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction report,
Hate Crime Statistics 2002 , details reported hate crimes by cities, towns, and colleges and universities. The nearly 150-page FBI report is now available online in pdf format at www.fbi.gov/ucr/hatecrime2002.pdf * Updated information to come

Highlights of 2003 Hate Crime Data

• While the overall number of violent crimes reported to the FBI in 2003 decreased by 3%, reported hate crimes increased slightly, from 7,462 in 2002 to 7,489 in 2003.
• The 7,489 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI involved 8,715 separate offenses, 9,100 victims, and 6,934 known offenders.
• Racial bias again represented the largest percentage of bias-motivated incidents (51.3%), followed by Religion Bias (17.9%), Sexual Orientation Bias (16.5%), Ethnicity Bias (13.7%), and Disability Bias (0.4%).
• Of the 7,489 incidents, 4,511 were crimes against persons, 3,139 were crimes against property, and the remaining 59 were crimes against society.
• 927 anti-Semitic crimes were reported, a very slight decrease from 931 in 2002. Overall, crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions comprised 12.4% of all the bias-motivated crimes - and 69% of the religious-based crime incidents.
• Anti-black bias was the most prevalent racial motivation, with 2,548 incidents (34% of all hate crimes); anti-male homosexual bias was the most common sexual orientation motivation, with 783 incidents (10.5% of all hate crimes).
• The number of reported anti-Islamic crimes decreased from 155 in 2002 to 149 in 2003, a decrease of 0.4%. In addition, the number of hate crimes directed at individuals on the basis of their national origin/ethnicity also decreased ??- from 1,102 in 2002 to 1,026 in 2003.
• The number of national law enforcement agencies reporting to the FBI in 2003 decreased slightly from 12,073 to 11,909 - the fourth highest total of participating agencies in the thirteen-year history of the data collection effort. However, of the 11,909 that participated, only 1,967 agencies (16.5%) reported even a single hate crime, a slight increase from the 15.5% that reported incidents in 2002. Thus, 83.5% of all participating law enforcement agencies affirmatively reported zero hate crimes.
• Of the 6,934 identified hate crime offenders, the majority were white (4,317, or 62.3%); 1,286 (18.5%) were black, 61 (0.9%) were American Indian or Alaskan Native, 93 (1.3%) were Asian or Pacific Islander, 741 (10.7%) were of unknown race, and the remaining 436 (6.3%) were of other races or multiple races.
• The five states with the highest numbers of hate crime were: California (1,472 incidents, 19.7% of total reported incidents), New York (602, 8%), New Jersey (594, 7.9%), Michigan (427, 5.7%), and Massachusetts (403, 5.4%). These five states comprise 46.7% of all incidents reported in the United States.
• Hawaii was, again, the only state that did not participate in reporting hate crime to the FBI; Alabama and Mississippi participated, but each affirmatively reported one (1) hate crime for 2003.