Inaccuracies of Hate Crime Data

Inaccuracies of Hate Crime Data

Nelson Creath (Harry)

Salt Lake Community College

CJ-1010
Inaccuracies of Hate Crime Data

Hate crime data is data impacted by hate crimes that is recorded by different law

enforcement agencies across the nation. This data helps law enforcement track hate

crimes so that they can attempt to stop them long term. Within this data collection there

are a few different contributors to inaccurate data. These are 1.) Law enforcement

struggles to conclude a motive in these crimes. 2.) Hate crime victims often do not report

their involvement in the crime. 3.) In the past there was not a system for reporting these

crimes.

Law enforcement is often challenged with the job of determining a motive before

they can record a crime as a hate crime officially. The motive of a hate crime must be

rooted in discrimination against someone for their race, sexual orientation, gender ect…

Because of this, many hate crimes go unrecorded because police are not able to define a

motive even though it might be apparent.

Another reason that hate crime data reflects inaccuracies is because often times

victims of these crimes do not speak out for, “fear of revictimization or retaliation by the

perpetrators; feelings of humiliation or shame about being victimized; fear of having

privacy compromised; uncertainty about the responsiveness and concern of law

enforcement and the justice system; mistrust or cultural fears of dealing with law

enforcement; language barriers; or fear of being deported on the part of undocumented

aliens” according to the report that this is based off of. This means there is a significant

number of these cases going unreported.

Lastly, in pervious years the practice of recording hate crimes was sloppy and

often times over looked until 1990 when President Bush signed the Hate Crime Statistics
Inaccuracies of Hate Crime Data

Act. This meant that Hate Crimes would now be part of the FBI’s UCR. This allowed for

large scale recordings of these crimes which in turn helped reflect more accurate data.

Hate Crime data is important and vital in the pursuit of stopping these horrible

crimes. When data is negatively impacted in a way that causes inaccuracy it means that

the crimes are continuing and the issue isn’t being felt with efficiently. Luckily there are

large scale projects in place to record these crimes on local and federal levels. Inaccuracy

will always be a part of data collection but finding solutions to minimize its impact is

very important. Especially to those directly impacted by hate crimes.

Inaccuracies of Hate Crime Data

References:

I. (2016). Investigation of Hate Crimes, Concepts and Issues Paper (pp. 1-15, Rep.). Alexandria,
VA: IACP Law Enforcement Policy Center.