The starting point for understanding hate crimes and their impact is to recognize that criminal activity motivated by bias is different from other criminal conduct. First, these crimes occur because of the perpetrator’s bias or animus against the victim on the basis of actual or perceived status. The victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability is the reason for the crime. In the vast majority of these crimes, absent the victim’s personal characteristics, no crime would occur at all.
Second, because hate violence is intentionally and specifically targeted at individuals because of their personal, immutable characteristics, they are very personal crimes with particular emotional and psychological impacts on the victim — and the victim’s community. Hate crimes physically wound and may effectively intimidate other members of the victim’s community, leaving them feeling terrorized, isolated, vulnerable and unprotected by the law. By making the victim’s community fearful, angry and suspicious of other groups — and of the power structure that is supposed to protect them — these incidents can damage the fabric of our society and fragment communities.
The U.S. is experiencing a dramatic increase in targeted hate violence and the normalization of hateful and destructive ideologies based on white supremacy. But we can’t address our nation’s hate crime problem without measuring it accurately. The FBI has been collecting hate crime data as part of its Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system since 1991 and provides the best national snapshot of the issue. Unfortunately, reporting is not mandatory, and, year in and year out, the data is clearly incomplete. In its most recent report, covering 2024, the FBI documented 11,679 hate crimes, reported by more than 16,000 federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies (out of over 19,000) across the country. However, according to national surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), an average of almost 250,000 hate crimes occurred each year between 2005 and 2019. The BJS bases its estimate not on the UCR data collected from law enforcement agencies but rather on its annual National Crime Victimization Survey, which samples about 95,000 households. The actual number of hate crimes is likely somewhere between the BJS estimate and the number reported by the FBI.
As defined by the FBI, a hate crime is a violent or property crime — such as murder, arson, assault or vandalism — that is “motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.” In addition to the federal statutes, 46 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws. These laws differ in significant ways. All cover bias based on race, ethnicity or religion, but many do not include gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. Arkansas, Indiana, South Carolina and Wyoming do not have hate crime laws but still report hate crime data to the FBI.
The FBI releases a hate crime report each year, but it vastly understates the extent of the problem for several reasons. First, hate crime reporting by law enforcement agencies (like the entire FBI crime reporting system) is voluntary. In 2024 (the most recent data released), 81% of the 16,419 agencies that reported data to the FBI affirmatively reported zero (0) hate crimes — including more than 50 agencies serving populations over 100,000. Almost 3,000 other jurisdictions did not report any data. Second, according to the BJS, in almost half of all hate crimes, victims never report the crime to the police. Reporting is a two-way street: Officers must be trained to identify, report and respond to hate crimes — and victims will only report if they trust the police and believe officials will respond effectively.
The targets of hate crime
In its most recent report, the FBI documented 11,679 hate crimes against persons, institutions and property in 2024, compared to 11,862 reported in 2023 — a slight decrease, but the second-highest number ever reported since the FBI began collecting this data in 1991.
Of the 11,679 hate crimes reported:
- 5,866 were on the basis of race.
- 3,004 against Black people.
- 797 against Latinx people (the second highest ever recorded).
- 408 against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
- 137 against Arab Americans (the highest ever recorded).
- 2,783 were on the basis of religion.
- 1,938 against Jewish people (the highest ever recorded).
- 228 against Muslims.
- 1,950 on the basis of sexual orientation (the second highest ever recorded).
- 463 on the basis of gender identity (the second highest ever recorded).
What motivates hate offenders?
Every year since 1991, the FBI has documented that racial bias has been the motivating factor in most hate crimes — and crimes directed against Black people and institutions serving the Black community have always been the most numerous single category. But other factors involving the psychology of the offender have also been the subject of research. In one study widely used by law enforcement, sociologists Jack McDevitt and Jack Levin classified hate offenders as having four main motivations: thrill-seeking, defensive, retaliatory and mission.
- “Thrill-seeking” motivates 66% of hate crimes. These offenders are simply looking for excitement; more than 90% do not know their victims.
- “Defensive” hate crimes (25%) are committed by perpetrators who rationalize their attacks by identifying some sort of perceived threat to themselves, their identities or their community.
- In “retaliatory” attacks (8%), culprits are acting in response to a real or perceived hate crime either to themselves or to their country. Examples include crimes committed against Muslims after the 2015 San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack.
- “Mission” hate crimes (less than 1%) are committed by offenders who make a career out of hate. They often write at length about their hate and have elaborate, premeditated plans of attack.
Hate crime vs. hate speech
Hateful speech — often intended to degrade, intimidate or incite violence or discrimination against certain groups — is not cost-free. This type of speech is harmful but likely protected by the First Amendment and not punishable under criminal law. However, the First Amendment does not protect violence or true threats of violence, nor does it prevent the government from imposing criminal penalties for violent discriminatory conduct intentionally directed against victims based on their personal characteristics.
Americans are free to think, preach and believe whatever they want. Only when an individual commits a crime and intentionally targets a person for violence or vandalism because of their own bias can a hate crime statute be triggered. Of course, racial, antisemitic or anti-LGBTQ+ slurs — or other speech that vilifies a targeted group — can be evidence of a hate crime when used by someone while committing an underlying crime.
Hate crime vs. terrorism
Differentiating terrorist attacks from hate crimes is essential to understanding motive, addressing the root causes of an offense and prosecuting the offenders. Hate crimes are motivated at least in part by an offender’s personal bias and are disproportionately committed by nonpolitical youths, acting alone, not under the direction of an organized hate group, often simply for the thrill of it. Terrorist attacks, on the other hand, are violent acts inspired primarily by extremist beliefs and intended as political or ideological statements. In some cases, perpetrators target individuals or institutions associated with a specific identity — such as Jewish or Muslim people, as in a hate crime. In other cases, offenders target government installations or groups of civilians related more by proximity than by their individual identity.
Sometimes, a violent crime can be considered both a hate crime and a terrorist attack. An example is the 2015 massacre of nine Black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a young white supremacist. For the most part, though, terrorist attacks are not included in tabulations of hate crimes.
History of federal hate crime legislation
For much of U.S. history, local law enforcement officials — especially in the Jim Crow South — simply refused to investigate or prosecute lynchings and other race-based crimes. Recognizing this fact, as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. §245 (Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights) to prosecute a number of white supremacists who committed murders, bombings or other acts of violence to intimidate the Black community and civil rights activists. This law made it a federal crime to forcefully injure, intimidate or interfere with someone — on the basis of their race, color, religion or national origin — because of their attempt to participate in any of six federally protected activities, including voting or attending school.
In 1990, Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act. It required the attorney general to publish an annual report on crimes that exhibit evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity. The FBI was tasked with collecting and reporting this data under its UCR program, which has been gathering crime data from state and local law enforcement agencies on a voluntary basis since 1930.
Upon the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act, President George H.W. Bush referenced the Civil Rights Memorial, built and sponsored by the SPLC in Montgomery, Alabama. Bush quoted Martin Luther King Jr., whose words are etched on the memorial: “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Bush added, “We must rid our communities of the poison we call prejudice, bias and discrimination. … The Hate Crime Statistics Act is an important further step toward the protection of all Americans’ civil rights.”
In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include bias against persons with disabilities.
The Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. §247) cemented the Hate Crime Statistics Act by making the collection of hate crime data a permanent part of the UCR program. Enacted after 66 Black churches were destroyed in less than two years, the act provided added authorization for the federal government to prosecute people who burn or damage religious property.
In 2009, Congress passed the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Division E of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010), named for two victims of horrific crimes in 1998 based partly or wholly on their identities. Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay student, was beaten and murdered in Wyoming. James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man, was dragged to his death behind a truck by three white supremacists in Texas.
The Shepard-Byrd Act changed federal hate crime law in several important ways. It removed the requirement that to qualify as a hate crime, the victim must have been participating in a federally protected activity such as voting. It expanded the existing hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It required the FBI to add gender and gender identity as categories of hate crimes it tracks and on which it reports annually. It gave the federal government greater flexibility to prosecute hate crimes that local authorities choose not to pursue. And it required the FBI to collect data concerning hate crimes committed by or targeting youth. The FBI began collecting this data in 2013.
In 2015, the FBI expanded the religious bias category and began collecting and reporting on hate crimes directed against, among other groups, Sikhs, Hindus, Arabs, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Eastern Orthodox people.
The vast majority of hate crimes today are investigated and prosecuted by state and local law enforcement officials. Yet, as mentioned, four states do not have hate crime laws. In addition, only 34 states and D.C. cover sexual orientation; only 32 states and D.C. cover gender; only 24 states and D.C. cover gender identity/expression; and only 35 states and D.C. cover disability. The Shepard-Byrd Act serves as an essential backstop when state or local law enforcement officials either cannot or will not investigate and prosecute a hate crime.
Enactment of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act in May 2021, which included the provisions of the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault and Threats to Equality Act (NO HATE Act) in Section 5, was an important step forward. That law — sparked by thousands of incidents of violence, harassment and intimidation directed against Asian American and Pacific Islander people — authorized incentive grants to stimulate improved local and state hate crime training, prevention, best practices and data collection initiatives. The law also authorized grants available for state hate crime reporting hotlines to direct individuals to local law enforcement and support services. Following enactment of the law, the Justice Department, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, published an excellent community guide designed to raise awareness of rights and build resilience in the aftermath of hate incidents.
Addressing hate crimes on campus
After Jeanne Clery was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986, the Clery Act of 1990 was enacted to increase awareness of crime on college campuses. The act requires all colleges that receive federal funding to share information about campus crime — including hate crime — with their students and employees. These institutions must report how they address safety on campus, inform the public about campus crime and reduce crime rates. Colleges must also report the ways in which they are working to remedy situations with victims and include prevention education in their policies. A 2008 amendment to the Clery Act requires postsecondary institutions to report hate crime incidents. The U.S. Department of Education publishes the number of hate crimes reported by these institutions annually. In July 2024, the department announced that it would voluntarily collect more specific, disaggregated hate crime data from covered institutions.
Gaps in hate crime data collection
Hate crime data reporting is incomplete for many reasons. As previously mentioned, only a fraction of the more than 19,000 federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies reported even a single hate crime to the FBI in 2024. Many agencies lack the training to identify, report and respond to hate crimes. Less than 20 states have laws requiring that officers be trained to identify and investigate hate crimes. Numerous police departments also have misconceptions about handling hate crimes. According to a national survey by ProPublica, many agencies wrongly believe it is up to prosecutors to deem an incident a hate crime. In fact, state law definitions of what constitutes a hate crime are irrelevant for FBI data collection purposes, as outlined in the bureau’s comprehensive Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual. And, though the FBI itself has begun reporting hate crimes, many federal law enforcement agencies — and the military service branches — do not.
Should more be done?
Absolutely. Much more needs to be done to improve data collection — and to prevent hate crimes from occurring in the first place.
Data drives policy
We cannot remedy our nation’s hate crime problem without accurate information about the nature and magnitude of the problem. Bipartisan legislation, the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act, would condition federal funding for large law enforcement agencies (those serving jurisdictions over 100,000 in population) on credible hate crime reporting to the FBI — or meaningful community hate crime prevention, outreach and awareness initiatives by such agencies. Improving data collection requires that targeted people report hate crimes against them and that well-trained police know how to identify, report and respond to hate violence. Research has shown that better hate crime data would help to properly allocate police resources and personnel — preventing crimes, reassuring hate crime survivors, and building trust and relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
Importantly, significant organizations in the law enforcement community have elevated their voices in support of more comprehensive hate crime data collection. In March 2021, the International Association of Chiefs of Police updated its fine Model Policy and Concepts and Issues Paper on Hate Crime, adding mandatory hate crime reporting for the first time as a best practice. And the National Police Foundation’s Open Data Initiative has demonstrated conclusively the police-community relations benefits of credible, publicly accessible, real-time hate crime data.
Prevention is better than enforcement
The law is a blunt instrument to confront hate and extremism. It does not address the disparate root causes of hate, nor does it adequately mitigate future harms to historically targeted and marginalized communities. Enforcement of existing federal and state hate crime laws — and training for judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials charged with enforcement — is critical but insufficient. Simply put, we cannot legislate, regulate, tabulate or prosecute racism, hatred or extremism out of existence.
Hate crime prosecutions
The issues with underreporting are not the only obstacles to addressing hate crimes in the U.S. The difficulty with prosecution is also an issue. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, violent hate crimes are three times less likely to result in an arrest than violent crimes not related to bias. In the vast majority of hate crime cases, the victim does not know the offender.
Hate crimes are difficult to prosecute in part because of the evidence needed to result in a conviction. Prosecutors must prove the underlying crime beyond reasonable doubt and convince jurors that the offender was motivated by bias. Without hate speech accompanying the crime, it is a difficult hurdle. When states do not have the necessary resources or authority to prosecute a hate crime, the process is even more arduous. The Shepard-Byrd Act allows the federal government to prosecute hate crimes in some cases where local or state prosecutors are either unable or unwilling to act. However, before the DOJ may prosecute a hate crime, several criteria must be met. The U.S. attorney general must assert that either the state does not have jurisdiction, that the state asks the federal government to assume jurisdiction, that a verdict or sentence obtained under state charges insufficiently eradicates bias-motivated violence, or that it is in the public interest of the United States to prosecute. Hence, federal hate crime prosecutions are rare. A July 2021 BJS report found that from Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, 2019, U.S. attorneys investigated 1,864 suspects accused of violating federal hate crime laws, with just 17% of the suspects later referred for prosecution.
Recommendations for Congress, State and Local Officials, and Community Members
The Trump administration has taken sweeping actions to dismantle federal agencies serving those experiencing poverty and has worked to roll back decades of rules and regulations aimed at addressing systemic racism and discrimination against Black and Brown people, LGBTQ+ communities and women. At a time when we face concerted efforts to divide and demoralize individuals and organizations working to promote a fair, equitable and inclusive multiracial democracy, it is essential that we identify strategies and policy objectives that will help advance the interests of Black and Brown people and protect other marginalized and disenfranchised communities from hate and discrimination.
The administration and Congress must take meaningful actions that prioritize combating all forms of hate, promoting mutual respect and understanding, and ensuring that all people in America, regardless of their background, feel protected and valued. Community members have important roles to play – tracking issues most important to them and pressing their federal, state, and local officials to make progress addressing these issues.
Mandate Comprehensive Police and Campus Hate Crime Reporting
After more than 30 years of incomplete data and consistent underreporting, Congress should expand incentives — more carrots and more sticks — toward making law enforcement hate crime reporting mandatory. Congress should enact HR 2588, bipartisan legislation that would condition federal funding for large police agencies on reporting credible hate crime data to the FBI — not the specific subcategories of crimes under these categories (against Blacks, Muslims, Jews, Hispanics, Arabs).
- Congress should ensure that colleges and universities are prioritizing the safety of their students by requiring colleges and universities to report specific, disaggregated hate crime data to the Department of Education and to make those reports publicly available.
Speak Out Against Hate and Extremism
It is impossible to overstate the importance of elected officials, business leaders and community officials using their public platforms to condemn hate crimes, vandalism and violence directed against historically Black colleges and universities, houses of worship and other minority institutions, and election workers.
Fund Inclusive Prevention Initiatives
The U.S. expends enormous resources on securitizing infrastructure against and on law enforcement response to violent attacks by extremists, but shockingly little on preventing the influence of hateful ideologies from leading to this kind of violence. Prevention is far better than enforcement. Yet President Trump’s FY 2026 budget proposal eliminated funding for the Department of Justice’s three largest hate crime prevention and training programs that together had received close to $30 million in FY 2025. And in April, Attorney General Bondi summarily terminated 56 existing hate crime prevention grant programs totaling over $46 million.
- The Justice Department should reinstate all hate crime prevention and training grants canceled in April.
- Department of Homeland Security FEMA federal funding and other state funding devoted to increasing security and hardening of houses of worship and other at-risk community institutions must be complemented by sufficient resources devoted to addressing root causes and preventing hate and extremism.
- The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security must fund evidence-based research designed to address far-right domestic extremism and interrupt online radicalization. The trailblazing work the SPLC is doing with American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) provides a valuable model and resources.
Improve Government Response to Political Violence and Domestic Extremism
Concerns about an increasing threat of political violence must be addressed. In September, Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk was murdered. In June, a man shot two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers and their spouses, killing two people and wounding two others. And Capitol Police investigated more than 9,000 threats against members of Congress in 2024.
- Policymakers and community, faith, and business leaders must promote the notion that violence is never the answer. Violence only fuels division. Justice requires peace.
More than 230 people with military backgrounds were arrested in connection with the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And studies over the past decade have documented a significant rise in arrests for ideologically driven extremist crimes by individuals with military backgrounds. Veterans and active-duty service members are high-value recruitment targets for extremist groups. They bring social capital, legitimacy, specialized weapons training, leadership skills, and an increased capacity for violence to these groups.
- The Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs must continue to address white supremacy and extremism in the armed forces at every stage: recruitment; expanding and clarifying prohibitions against advocating for, or involvement in, supremacist or extremist activity for active-duty personnel; and more extensive efforts to help veterans transition into civilian life, including counseling, mental health and social welfare services.
Teach Truth
- In the face of concerted Trump administration efforts to whitewash and erase Black and Brown history and sanitize our nation’s past, much more must be done to teach young people the unvarnished truth about American history — both good and bad. Learning lessons from the past can shape a better future. Concealing the truth about our history does not protect our youth; it makes them susceptible to misinformation and fails to equip them with the digital literacy and critical thinking skills they need to navigate a new age where disinformation and manipulation are spreading. The SPLC’s Learning for Justice program is a model for needed resources in our nation’s schools.
- Congress and the administration should promote inclusive education and democracy-building school initiatives that celebrate our nation’s diversity — and fiercely oppose federal and state laws and policies that prevent educators from teaching truth and hard history, and other efforts to restrict inclusive education.
Prohibit White Supremacy in Policing
Federal, state and local police officers are not immune from extremist ideologies that have been mainstreamed in recent years. But individuals tasked with protecting the public equitably cannot be trusted to do so if they associate with an openly racist, bigoted or misogynistic organization.
- Congress should enact legislation to require the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and all other federal agencies with law enforcement responsibility to prohibit the hiring and retention of law enforcement officers who promote unlawful violence, white supremacy or other bias against persons based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity) or disability.
Promote Online Safety and Hold Tech and Social Media Companies Accountable
Technology is infiltrating nearly every part of American life — and driving the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. Major platforms with global reach have moved away from meaningful content moderation, making it easier for racists and extremists to disseminate propaganda and misogynistic content, recruit followers, generate profits and spread intimidation through social media.
- Consistent with the First Amendment, Congress should adopt rules and regulations to ensure that tech companies increase accountability and transparency, do not provide platforms where hateful activities and extremism can grow, and comply with civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination.
Additional contributions to this essay were made by Swathi Shanmugasundaram.
Photo at top by STRF/STAR MAX/IPx/AP Images