Policy Spotlight - Hate Crime Laws 2021

• Locations: United States of America • Topics: Hate Crimes

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POLICY SPOTLIGHT:

HATE CRIME LAWS

JULY 2021
Partners

Author

movementedvancementproject ►

Foreword by Judy Shepard

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This report was authored by:

Acknowledgments

Movement Advancement Project
MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research,
insight, and communications that help speed equality and
opportunity for all people. MAP works to ensure that all people have
a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care
of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate
in civic life. For more information, visit www.lgbtmap.org.

Special Thanks
Special thanks to Dr. Bonnie Washick for her
statutory research and project consultation, and
to Lauren Griffin and Andy Ligotti of Alston & Bird
for their case study research.

Contact Information
Movement Advancement Project
1905 15th Street #1097
Boulder, CO 80306
1-844-MAP-8800
www.lgbtmap.org

MAP is very grateful to the following major funders,
whose generous support makes it possible for us
to do our work:

Additional thanks to:
Adrian Shanker, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center
Audacia Ray, Anti-Violence Project (AVP)
Arusha Gordon, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law
Becky Monroe, The Leadership Conference
Corinne Green, Equality Federation

David Bohnett Foundation

Dana Juniel, Matthew Shepard Foundation

David Dechman & Michel Mercure

Delvin Davis, Southern Poverty Law Center

Ford Foundation

Erin Hustings, Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

Gill Foundation
Esmond Harmsworth

Greg Miraglia, Matthew Shepard Foundation

Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund

Ian Palmquist, Equality Federation

Jim Hormel

Leo Ferguson, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice

Johnson Family Foundation
Laughing Gull Foundation

Madihha Ahussain, Muslim Advocates

Weston Milliken

Michael Lieberman, Southern Poverty Law Center

Ineke Mushovic

Nikki Singh, The Sikh Coalition

The Palette Fund

Phyllis Gerstenfeld, California State University - Stanislaus

Mona Pittenger
Ronald W. Naito MD Foundation

Puneet Cheema, Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF)

Ted Snowdon Foundation

Somjen Frazer, Strength in Numbers Consulting

Tzedek Social Justice Fund

Shelby Chestnut, Transgender Law Center

H. van Ameringen Foundation
Wild Geese Foundation

Tyrone Hanley, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Victoria Kirby-York, National Black Justice Coalition

Recommended citation: Movement Advancement Project. July 2021. Policy Spotlight: Hate Crime Laws. www.lgbtmap.org/2021-report-hate-crimes.

This report was developed in partnership with:
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
(ADL) is the world’s leading anti-hate organization. Founded in 1913 in
response to an escalating climate of antisemitism and bigotry, its timeless
mission is to protect the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair
treatment for all. Today, ADL continues to fight all forms of hate with the
same vigor and passion. A global leader in exposing extremism, delivering
anti-bias education, and fighting hate online, ADL is the first call when acts
of antisemitism occur. ADL’s ultimate goal is a world in which no group or
individual suffers from bias, discrimination or hate.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC
Founded in 1991, Advancing Justice—AAJC’s (Advancing Justice—AAJC)
mission is to advance civil and human rights for Asian Americans and to
build and promote a fair and equitable society for all. Advancing Justice –
AAJC is the voice for the Asian American community – the fastest-growing
population in the U.S. – fighting for our civil rights through education,
litigation, and public policy advocacy. We serve to empower our
communities by bringing local and national constituencies together and
ensuring Asian Americans are able to participate fully in our democracy
Equality Federation Institute
Equality Federation Institute is an advocacy accelerator rooted in social
justice, building power in our network of state-based lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy organizations. Since 1997,
Equality Federation Institute has become a leading movement builder,
national network, and strategic partner to 40+ member organizations
that advocate for LGBTQ people in the states. Collectively, our member
network of state partners mobilizes more than 2 million supporters across
the country. From Equality Florida to Freedom Oklahoma to Basic Rights
Oregon, we amplify the power of the state-based LGBTQ movement.
The James Byrd Jr. Center to Stop Hate at the Lawyers’ Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law
The James Byrd Jr. Center to Stop Hate, at the Lawyers’ Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law, supports communities and individuals targeted
for hate and challenges white supremacy by using creative legal advocacy,
disrupting systems that enable hate, and educating the general public
and policy makers. The Byrd Center’s resource and reporting hotline for
hate incidents, 1-844-9-NO-HATE (1-844-966-4283), connects people and
organizations combating hate with the resources and support they need.
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) is a grassroots organization
and home to New York City’s Jewish Left. For over three decades, JFREJ
members have organized alongside our neighbors to win an equitable
New York City free from all forms of racist violence, where everyone has
what they need to thrive.
Lambda Legal
Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization whose
mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay
men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV through
impact litigation, education and public policy work.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
LatinoJustice PRLDEF works to create a more just society by using and
challenging the rule of law to secure transformative, equitable and accessible
justice, by empowering our community and by fostering leadership
through advocacy and education. For nearly 50 years, LatinoJustice PRLDEF
has acted as an advocate against injustices throughout the country.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation
The mission of the Matthew Shepard Foundation is to amplify the story of
Matthew Shepard to inspire individuals, organizations, and communities
to embrace the dignity and equality of all people. Through local, regional,
and national outreach, we empower individuals to find their voice to create
change and challenge communities to identify and address hate that lives
within our schools, neighborhoods, and homes. Our work is an extension of
Matt’s passion to foster a more caring and just world. We share his story and
embody his vigor for civil rights to change the hearts and minds of others
to accept everyone as they are.

National Black Justice Coalition
The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) is a civil rights organization
dedicated to the empowerment of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
queer+, and same gender loving (LGBTQ+/SGL) people, including people
living with HIV/AIDS. NBJC’s mission is to end racism, homo/trans/biphobia,
and LGBTQ+/SGL bias and stigma. As America’s leading national Black
LGBTQ+/ SGL civil rights organization focused on federal public policy
and grassroots organizing, NBJC has accepted the charge to lead Black
families in strengthening the bonds and bridging the gaps between the
movements for racial justice and LGBTQ+/SGL equality.
National Center for Lesbian Rights
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) is a national legal
organization committed to advancing the human and civil rights of
the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community through
litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. Since its founding,
NCLR has maintained a longstanding commitment to racial and economic
justice and the LGBTQ community’s most vulnerable
National Center for Transgender Equality
The National Center for Transgender Equality advocates to change policies
and society to increase understanding and acceptance of transgender
people. In the nation’s capital and throughout the country, NCTE works to
replace disrespect, discrimination, and violence with empathy, opportunity,
and justice.
National Council of Jewish Women
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) is a grassroots organization
of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action.
Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving
the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding
individual rights and freedoms.
National Disability Rights Network
The National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) is the nonprofit
membership organization for the federally mandated Protection and
Advocacy (P&A) Systems and the Client Assistance Programs (CAP) for
individuals with disabilities. NDRN promotes the network’s capacity,
ensures that P&As/CAPs remain strong and effective by providing training
and technical assistance, and advocates for laws protecting the civil and
human rights of all people with disabilities.
The Sikh Coalition
The Sikh Coalition is a national, community-based organization and the
largest Sikh civil rights organization in the United States. Whether it’s
working to secure safer schools, prevent hate and discrimination, create
equal employment opportunities, empower local Sikh communities, or
raise the Sikh profile in the media, the Sikh Coalition’s goal is working
towards a world where Sikhs, and other religious minorities in America,
may freely practice their faith without fear of bias and discrimination.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Now in our 50th year, the SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South
and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle
white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance
the human rights of all people. We have helped dismantle vestiges of Jim
Crow, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for
women, children, the LGBTQ+ community, and the disabled, and worked
to protect low-wage immigrant workers from exploitation. Today, the SPLC
is the premier U.S. nonprofit organization monitoring the activities of
domestic hate groups and other extremists.
The Union for Reform Judaism
The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) leads the largest and most diverse
Jewish movement in North America. The URJ builds community at every
level, motivates people from diverse backgrounds to participate and
deepen their engagement in Jewish life, and strives to create a more whole,
just, and compassionate world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD........................................................................................................................................i
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................................ii
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1
HATE VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES ........................................................................................2
NATIONAL POLICY LANDSCAPE: HATE CRIME LAW......................................................................8
Federal Hate Crime Law................................................................................................................................................ 8
State Hate Crime Law..................................................................................................................................................... 9
Criminal Punishment................................................................................................................................................................10
Statute Type: Distinct Crime vs. General Sentencing....................................................................................................11
Protected Categories................................................................................................................................................................12
Institutional Vandalism............................................................................................................................................................16
Collateral Consequences........................................................................................................................................................16
Non-Carceral Sentencing........................................................................................................................................................18
Civil Action...................................................................................................................................................................................19
Victim Protections & Support................................................................................................................................................22
Data Collection & Reporting..................................................................................................................................................23
Law Enforcement Training......................................................................................................................................................24

CHALLENGES OF HATE CRIME LAWS...............................................................................................26
Flaws in Data Collection and Reporting................................................................................................................... 27
Abusing Original Intent of Hate Crime Law............................................................................................................ 29
Failing to Address the Root Causes of Hate Violence.......................................................................................... 30
Bias in the Criminal Justice System............................................................................................................................ 31
RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................................................................................34
Reducing Vulnerability and Investing in Harmed Communities...................................................................... 34
Preventing Violence........................................................................................................................................................ 35
Improved Law Enforcement Training and Accountability.................................................................................. 35
Improved (and Community-Based) Data Collection............................................................................................ 35
Shifting to Support and Healing................................................................................................................................ 36
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................38
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.................................................................................................................39
ENDNOTES.........................................................................................................................................40

SPOTLIGHTS
ANTI-TRANSGENDER VIOLENCE......................................................................................................6
THE RISE IN ANTI-ASIAN HATE VIOLENCE DURING COVID-19......................................................7
CIVIL ACTIONS AS ALTERNATIVES TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION................................................20
VIOLENCE AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES..........................................................................21
LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING & COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY.............................................25
CURRENT LEGISLATIVE OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE HATE CRIME LAWS................................33
WHAT IS RESTORATIVE JUSTICE?....................................................................................................37

Notes on Language
The FBI currently defines a hate crime as a “committed criminal offense which is
motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion,
disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” This report uses
terms such as “hate crimes”, “hate-motivated crimes”, and “bias-motivated crimes”
interchangeably.
Hate crimes and hate violence are related but different terms. Hate violence refers to a
broad category of experiences or incidences of violence involving hate, prejudice, and
discrimination, and not all of those experiences may fit a stricter, legal definition of a hate
crime. Hate crimes generally refers to criminal acts, such as assault or vandalism, that are,
as defined above, motivated in whole or in part by bias or hate. For example, a person
yelling a racial slur at someone could be hate violence, but simply yelling a racial slur alone
would not be categorized as a hate crime. Yelling racial slurs while assaulting someone,
however, would likely be evidence of a hate crime. In other words, hate crimes are one
type of hate violence, but not all hate violence is (by legal definitions) a hate crime.

FOREWORD
My experience with and understanding of hate crime laws is both personal and painful. In October of
1998, my son Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked, tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming, and
left to die. He succumbed to his injuries five days later and became the victim of one of the most notorious
anti-gay hate crimes in American history.
Although what happened to Matt was clearly motivated by hate and bias, his murderers were not
charged with a hate crime because a hate crime statute did not exist in Wyoming and the federal statute
did not include protections for sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s been over 20 years and we’ve come
a long way in not only improving the federal hate crime statute, named after Matt, but also expanding and
strengthening state hate crime laws.
Yet today, we are at a turning point. Although we know that hate crime laws are important and have been
successful in holding offenders accountable, we also know that they can and should be more impactful.
This report details the different ways hate crime laws currently respond to hate violence, while amplifying
opportunities for restorative approaches and innovative ways to prevent hate in the first place.
It is clear that hate crime laws have played an important role in responding to hate violence, and
tragedies like the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue, Pulse Nightclub, Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church, and the most recent attack on spas in Atlanta, GA, highlight the importance of naming
and acknowledging the role of bias in such violent incidents. However, hate crime laws are only one part
of a broader, more holistic approach. Unfortunately, no single law can solve the complex problem of hate
violence or undo the centuries of racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, bigotry and violence
that are woven into the fabric of American history.
We at the Matthew Shepard Foundation believe that a comprehensive strategy to addressing hate
crimes requires both preventative and enforcement components. The Foundation has played an active role
in strengthening hate crime laws, improving hate crime data collection and reporting, and providing indepth hate crime prevention training for law enforcement. We know that hate violence is a complicated
social issue, requiring proactive community focused solutions, victim support, and a reduction of our
reliance on the criminal justice system. We will continue to lend our voices to efforts that will enhance
victim protections, increase community safety, and address the societal root causes that create, enable and
perpetuate hate and bias.
After reading this report, I hope you walk away with a greater understanding of why hate crimes are a
different type of crime, that not only directly harm individual victims, but entire communities. I hope you
advocate for improved legislation like the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act and the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act,
which advance even stronger hate crimes protections, invest resources in violence prevention, and move us
another step forward in the fight for equality and justice. And, I hope you take a moment to remember the
lives lost to hate, like Matt and so many others whose families and communities demand change.
Judy Shepard
Board Chair & President
~ , , , , ~ Matthew
~
:;,,,aShepard
~ , . ~ Foundation
~·~

Erasing Hate since 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This current moment, marked by both rising hate
violence and rising attention to racial justice, brings
forth a need to reexamine and reimagine our responses
to hate crime.
Historically, hate crime laws have served as the
primary legal tool for responding to hate-motivated
crime. These laws serve an important and necessary
purpose in acknowledging the unique harms, to
both individual victims and the broader communities
affected, of these unique crimes. However, like many
other laws, hate crime laws are varied, often flawed, and
can even harm the very communities they are meant
to serve. Ultimately, though hate crime laws intend to
protect vulnerable communities, they remain a tool
of the criminal justice system, which itself is often
biased against the very same communities that are the
predominant targets of discrimination, bias, and hate.
This report calls attention to and examines the
complex variation in hate crime laws across the country, as
well as the multiple limitations of—and opportunities for
improving—hate crime laws. By reviewing existing laws,
illustrating both gaps and innovations, and exploring
the challenges of responding to bias-motivated violence
within a biased criminal justice system, this report
highlights the possibilities for expanding our response to
hate violence, including through more holistic, restorative,
and community-based efforts. It also highlights the
already existing opportunities to invest needed resources
in victim and community support services, rigorous data
collection and analysis, and efforts to prevent violence
and hate at their roots.
Ultimately, this report seeks to expand the
conversation around social and policy responses to
hate-motivated violence, and to identify potential paths
forward for communities, advocates, and policymakers
to create a safer and more resilient country for all, while
also reducing the reliance on the criminal justice system.
This is but one part of the larger work that remains for
our country before everyone—regardless of who they
are or where they’re from, the color of their skin, their
religion, ability, or who they love—can be safe and free.

Rising Hate Violence
Hate violence and harassment against many
communities—including communities of color, people
of minority faiths, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities,

and others—remain a persistent and widespread problem.
According to the FBI, 2019 saw a ten-year high in reported
hate crimes, the majority of which are crimes motivated
by racial or ethnic bias. Data from the Department of
Justice show this is only the tip of the iceberg, as more
than half of all hate crimes go unreported.
Data further show that anti-Jewish violence,
violence against people with disabilities, and many
more forms of hate violence have all increased over
recent years. Violence against LGBTQ people, especially
Black transgender women, also continues to rise each
year. During the COVID pandemic, there has been an
especially sharp increase in anti-Asian hate crimes.

No Uniform Response to Hate Crimes
Across Federal and State Laws
Federal and state governments vary widely in
their responses to hate violence, leading to a complex
patchwork of policies and protections across the
country. This means that a person who experiences
a hate crime may have a completely different set of
protections, options, or access to resources depending
on what state the crime occurs in. Similarly, requirements
for data collection, law enforcement training, and
more also vary widely from state to state, leading to
incomplete and inconsistent efforts in understanding the
true scope of hate violence and responding effectively
to it. Overall, this complexity illustrates just some of
the many ways states are already responding to hate
violence, and further invites an examination of which of
these efforts are, or are not, effective in protecting and
supporting those affected by hate crime, and ultimately
in preventing hate crime.
The earliest federal hate crime laws were passed
following the Civil War in response to widespread racist
and white supremacist violence in the years after the war.
The first modern federal hate crime law was passed in
1968, and federal law has been expanded and modified
many times since. At the state level today, 46 states, D.C.,
and two territories (Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
Islands) have hate crime laws, though they also vary in
many ways, as summarized below and in the infographic.

• Criminal punishment. A core element of all state
hate crime laws is the use of criminal punishment,
typically through sentencing enhancements, to
respond to instances of hate crime—though there
is little evidence that sentencing enhancements
deter crime.

• Statute type. Most states use a distinct hate crime
iii

statute to create a new, independent crime, while a
small minority use general sentencing statutes to
identify what characteristics (e.g., bias motivation)
of an underlying, existing crime (e.g., assault) may
justify enhanced sentencing. Four states use both
methods. Distinct statutes can allow for greater clarity
of what constitutes a hate crime (which in turn can
enable more precise data collection and training) and
what specific punishments (including non-carceral
sentencing options) ought to be applied.

• Protected

categories. While all hate crime laws
cover race or color, ethnicity or national origin, and
religion, there is considerable variation across states
when it comes to additional categories such as
disability, sex or gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity, age, and more. This leaves a patchwork
of protections for some communities depending
on where they live. It can also limit data collection
efforts, as data are typically (though not always) only
collected on categories enumerated by state laws.

• Institutional

vandalism. Bias-motivated violence
often targets people, but it can also target
institutions, such as community centers, religious
schools or buildings. Most states make it a crime
to target specific types of property or institutions,
and this acknowledges the harm caused by hate
violence that targets meaningful places, like a
Jewish cemetery or LGBTQ community center, even
if no person was physically harmed by the crime.

• Collateral consequences. A minority of states have
additional consequences for those convicted of a
hate crime, in addition to incarceration or other
requirements at sentencing. These consequences,
such as disqualifying a person convicted of a hate
crime from particular lines of work after their
sentence is complete or prohibiting gun ownership,
may be intended to minimize the chance of future
harm, but in some cases, they can also limit access
to important opportunities like anti-bias education
or diversion programs.

• Non-carceral sentencing. A minority of states’ hate
crime laws explicitly allow courts to recommend or
require those convicted of a hate crime to complete
community service or anti-bias education in addition
to their sentence. These provisions create important
opportunities for exploring alternative responses
to hate crimes, including responses geared toward

community repair and preventing hate crimes,
rather than only responding after the fact.

• Civil action. Hate crime laws create a criminal offense,
but more than half of states allow individuals to
pursue a civil action or lawsuit if they experience
bias-motivated crimes. This can allow an individual
to seek financial damages or legal responses beyond
imprisonment, and in some cases civil action can also
allow for the state to take action on behalf of victims.

• Victim

protections. Few states offer some sort of
statutory protections for survivors of hate crimes, such
as prohibiting insurance providers from canceling a
policy (like health insurance) that was used following
a hate crime. These provisions focus on the survivor
and can help those who experience hate crimes to
recover and to avoid further potential harm.

• Data collection. Only about half of states have laws
that require the state to collect and analyze data
on hate crimes via mandatory reporting from law
enforcement agencies. An additional four states and
D.C. require the state to collect and analyze such
data, but do not require law enforcement agencies
to report or participate in this effort. Consistent,
accurate data collection is vital for understanding
hate crime, as well as for evaluating the efficacy
of policy interventions, the potential for biased
enforcement of existing laws, and more.

• Law

enforcement training. Roughly one-third of
states require training for law enforcement on how
to properly identify, competently respond to, and
accurately collect and report data on hate crimes.
Because hate crime laws, in their current form,
rely on law enforcement for data collection and
connecting victims to needed resources, consistent
training requirements are important for the overall
effectiveness of hate crime laws.

Challenges of Addressing Hate Violence
Through The Criminal Justice System
No single law can solve the scourge of hate violence
in our society, and hate crime statutes are only one part
of broader efforts to end such violence and prejudice.
That said, over the roughly half-century since the first
modern hate crime laws were enacted, it is increasingly
evident that hate crime statutes—as well as the ways
law enforcement and the criminal justice system more
broadly respond to hate violence—can be improved.

This is particularly true with respect to engaging a more
holistic, responsive, and restorative approach to hate
violence and its unique harms. Key challenges of hate
crime laws currently include:

• Flaws in hate crime data collection and reporting
are widespread, and the current system of federal
data collection relies only on the voluntary
participation of law enforcement. This ultimately
means that extremely few hate crimes are actually
reported, and many victims of hate crimes are left
without needed support.

• Abuse of the original intent of hate crime laws is
also spreading. Since 2016, six states have passed
unnecessary legislation that adds police officers as
a protected class under hate crime laws, despite the
fact that all 50 states already have criminal statutes
that specifically address and punish violence against
a law enforcement officer. Importantly, these six
states have passed these laws—often referred to as
“Blue Lives Matter” laws—rather than meaningfully
respond to criticisms of police brutality and calls for
criminal justice reform.

• More broadly, hate crime laws’ harsher punishments

have not been shown to deter hate violence and
furthermore cannot address the root causes of
hate violence. In their current form, hate crime laws
focus on punishing individual offenders without
actually challenging their underlying prejudicial
beliefs—let alone the prejudice in broader society—
all while doing little to repair the actual harm done
to victim(s) and the broader community.

• Widespread

bias in the criminal justice system
results in significant racial disparities across many
outcomes, as well as clear disparities for lowincome people, LGBTQ people, and other vulnerable
communities—often the very communities that are
targeted for hate violence. This bias is not unique
to hate crime laws, but neither are hate crime
laws immune from the broader injustices of the
criminal justice system. Evidence shows that, for
example, even though the majority of hate crimes
are committed by white people, many states’ law
enforcement records disproportionately identify
Black people as hate crime offenders. Additionally,
given the many biases in the criminal system, many
communities are often reluctant to report their
experiences to the police out of fear of dismissal or
further discrimination, leading to further inequalities

in who receives support following hate violence and
the ways that the criminal justice system responds
to hate violence.
While these challenges are substantial, they need
not mean that hate crime laws should be abandoned
wholesale. Rather, they call attention to the possibility
and importance of refocusing or supplementing these
laws with resources on other important goals, such as
investing in victim and community support services,
rigorous data collection and analysis, and efforts to
prevent violence and hate at their roots.

Paths Forward to Address Hate Violence
This report highlights the multiple opportunities
for improving hate crime laws and better responding
to people and communities affected by hate violence.
These opportunities include:

• Reducing

the vulnerability of and investing in
communities that are harmed by hate violence, such
as people of color, LGBTQ people, people of minority
faiths, and people with disabilities. Investing in the social
safety set, expanding nondiscrimination protections,
and more will help reduce the broader instability
caused by discrimination, in turn reducing vulnerable
communities’ exposure to potential violence—as well
as their ability to recover from violence.

• Preventing violence through work that not only aims
to reduce hate crimes, but also work to reduce hate
and violence in and of itself. For example, in testimony
to the U.S. Senate, the Leadership Conference on Civil
and Human Rights (LCCHR) called for “the enactment
of comprehensive legislation focusing on inclusive
anti-bias education, hate crime prevention, and
bullying, cyberbullying, and harassment education,
policies, and training initiatives.”

• Improving

law enforcement accountability and
training is imperative, including to redress and
repair the disproportionate harms caused by law
enforcement to vulnerable communities. Given
that hate crime laws currently rely primarily on law
enforcement for responding to and collecting data
about hate violence, the effectiveness of hate crime
laws will depend on law enforcement’s treatment of
and accountability to vulnerable communities.

• Improving data collection, and especially through

community-based efforts, can help better connect
survivors and those affected by hate crimes to

needed resources and support. Such data can also
help policymakers and advocates craft more tailored
responses to hate violence. Data collection can also
help track any potential disparities or bias in the
enforcement of hate crime laws, as well as to evaluate
the efficacy of non-carceral responses to hate crime.

• Shifting focus toward support and healing, such
as through expanded measures to support victims
and survivors of hate crimes, community education
and response strategies, and non-carceral
approaches to justice.
As the United States continues to grapple with
racial justice, the harms of the criminal justice system,
and rising hate violence against many communities,
it is critical that we reexamine our social and policy
responses to hate crime. Further explicit study of the
efficacy, benefits, and potential harms of hate crime
laws is needed so that best practices—including those
beyond the criminal system—can be identified and
implemented consistently across the country. These best
practices should, at a minimum, center and invest in the
communities most impacted by hate violence, work to
both prevent hate violence and respond to it when it
does occur, and to do so without furthering the harm
and disproportionate impacts of the criminal justice
system. How hate crime laws, in both their current and
potential form, fit into the broader work to improve the
safety and security of all communities in the United
States is a critical part of the work ahead.

HATE CRIME LAWS:

A COMPLEXITY OF RESPONSES TO HATE VIOLENCE

PAGE 1vi

In addition to federal hate crime laws, today, 46 states, the District of Columbia (D.C.), and two territories have their own
hate crime laws. These laws have many components that vary widely across states, leading to a complex—and
inconsistent—patchwork of policies and protections across the country.

COMPONENTS OF HATE CRIME LAWS VARY WIDELY

udth

LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING

CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT

(18 states)
Requiring law enforcement to receive
training on identifying, responding to,
and collecting data about hate crimes.

(all hate crime laws)
Using the criminal legal system to
respond to hate crimes.
I
I

\
\

DATA COLLECTION

(30 states + D.C.)
Requiring states and/or law
enforcement agencies to collect,
report, and/or analyze data on hate
crimes in their state.

(38 distinct crime, 7 general
sentencing, 4 both)
Defining a new distinct crime or adding
bias motivation to existing crime and
sentencing guidelines (or both).

\
\

''
'

VICTIM PROTECTIONS
(9 states)
Explicitly providing resources and
legal protections to those who
experience hate crimes.

DISTINCT CRIME VS. GENERAL
SENTENCING STATUTES

~ ---------

---- ---- ---

t♦i

PROTECTED CLASSES
(vary widely)
Enumerating what types of biases
(such as race, disability, sexual
orientation) are prohibited.

✓

✓✓

.,;;;;,.

✓

, ,t

(31 states + D.C.)
Creating a civil (i.e., not criminal)
offense, allowing for lawsuits and in
some cases for the state to take action
on behalf of victims.

✓

RIGHT TO CIVIL ACTION

\
\

AND MORE

INSTITUTIONAL VANDALISM

(35 states, D.C., + two territories)
Making it a crime to target
institutions like religious buildings
or community centers, even if no
person was harmed.

NON-CARCERAL SENTENCING

COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES

(12 states)
Options for judges to require anti-bias
education or community service, in
addition to traditional punishment, for
those convicted of hate crimes.

(11 states)
Additional consequences beyond
sentencing (e.g., prohibiting gun
ownership) for those convicted of
hate crimes.

HATE CRIME LAWS:

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

vii

PAGE 2

No single law can solve the scourge of hate violence, and hate crime laws are only one part of larger efforts to end such
violence and prejudice. That said, there are many limitations to contemporary hate crime laws—but these challenges also
illustrate opportunities for creating more holistic responses to hate violence, including those that center harmed communities
and that reduce reliance on the biased criminal justice system.

KEY CHALLENGES
FLAWS IN DATA COLLECTION

ABUSE OF ORIGINAL INTENT

Over half of all hate crimes go unreported, including due
to fear of police.

So-called "Blue Lives Matter" amendments exploit hate
crime laws to add unnecessary protections for law
enforcement—and often do so instead of responding to
calls to end police violence.

Extremely few law enforcement agencies report hate
crime data to the FBI, leaving an incomplete picture of
the scope of hate violence.

BIAS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

FAILURE TO ADDRESS ROOT CAUSES

Biased systems can lead to biased outcomes, such as
over-policing
and
disproportionate
arrests,
prosecutions, and sentencing.

What can be done to prevent hate crimes—and hate
itself—rather than only respond to it?
Do these laws actually deter hate crime?

People of color are more likely to be victims of hate
violence but are disproportionately listed as hate crime
offenders in law enforcement reports.

How can we break a cycle of violence?

PATHS FORWARD
IMPROVING DATA COLLECTION
Funding community-based data collection and public
education efforts, such as hotlines
Requiring states to collect, analyze, and report hate
crime data to the public and policymakers
Requiring law enforcement to collect and report data to
states and to the FBI

s:
~·
....-a .
--~

IMPROVING LAW ENFORCEMENT
ACCOUNTABILITY & TRAINING
meaningful accountability
• Creating
harmed by law enforcement

to communities

Requiring law enforcement to have regular hate crime
training to improve recognition of and responses to hate
crime, including connecting victims to resources and
accurately collecting data

REDUCING VULNERABILITY & INVESTING
IN HARMED COMMUNITIES
Preventing the economic, social, and political
conditions that leave people vulnerable to hate violence

SHIFTING TO SUPPORT & HEALING

Investing resources in—and following the lead of—
communities disproportionately harmed by hate violence

Responding to hate violence when it happens, while
also working to break cycles of hate and harm

PREVENTING VIOLENCE

• Reducing hate violence by reducing hate itself
Anti-bias education, anti-bullying efforts, bystander
intervention and conflict resolution trainings,
community workshops, and more

•

Investing state and federal resources in victim and
community support services, including those provided
by community and nonprofit organizations

• Expanding and investing in non-carceral responses

INTRODUCTION
The United States has seen a marked increase in hate
crimes and hate-motivated violence over the past 10 years.1
This type of violence—in which someone is targeted
because of their race, color, ethnicity, national origin,
religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or other factors—is distinct from other types of
violence. This is because hate crimes and bias-motivated
violence affect not only the individual victim or survivor,
but often—and often intentionally so—the broader
community.2 Burning a cross near Black homes3 or
attempting to destroy a Jewish synagogue4 or Muslim
community center,5 for example, does not only harm the
individuals directly affected; it also inflicts emotional harm
and instills fear for many in the broader Black, Jewish, or
Muslim communities. Assaulting a person because of
their sexual orientation or gender identity does not only
harm that individual, but further threatens the safety and
well-being of other LGBTQ people.
As history has repeatedly shown, one prejudiced
individual’s words and actions can enable many others
to take discriminatory or violent action. As a result,
advocates argue, recognizing hate crimes as a unique
type of crime—and responding to them as such—sends
an important signal that such actions are unacceptable,
both socially and legally.
Hate crime laws are one tool used by policymakers
and the criminal justice system to address violence
motivated by hate or bias. Generally speaking, these laws
make it a crime to harm, intimidate, or threaten someone
because of who they are, such as because of their race,
religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender.

This report reviews the current policy landscape of
state hate crime laws and analyzes multiple dimensions
of these laws. This report also examines the challenges
related to hate crime laws, ranging from underreporting
of hate violence to the significant challenges in relying on
an already-biased criminal justice system to address bias.
Evidence shows that, for example, even though the majority
of hate crimes are committed by white people, many states’
law enforcement records disproportionately identify Black
people as hate crime offenders. Furthermore, communities
of color, LGBTQ people, and others are often reluctant to
report their experiences to the police out of fear of dismissal
or further discrimination, leading to further inequalities in
who receives support following hate violence and the ways
that the criminal justice system responds to hate violence.
This report shows the complex and diverse ways that
existing state law and the criminal justice system attempt
to respond to hate violence. This report also shows how
federal and state hate crime statutes function in a time
simultaneously marked by rising hate crimes and by rising
national attention to and understanding of the criminal
justice system and its racial bias. The growing visibility of
the broad, community-based harms that result from both
hate violence and from the criminal justice system illustrates
important questions about how to respond to hate violence
and how to support communities that experience it.
The report concludes by outlining recommendations
to center the communities most affected by hate
violence, prevent such violence in the first place, and
engage directly with the harm caused by incarceration
and the criminal justice system.

Hate crimes

have been referred to as this
country’s original form of domestic terrorism. They
have a reverberating effect, striking fear not only
in the individual victim, but also in the broader
community. These incidents further splinter and
segregate our communities by eroding the diverse
fabric of American life. … Such hatred destroys
the very fabric of our democracy and negatively

The first contemporary federal hate crime law was
passed as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Federal hate
crime law has expanded in multiple ways over the years,
including through the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990,
which created a federal system to track bias-motivated
crimes,6 and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which expanded
federal law to include certain crimes based on sexual
orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.
As early as 1981, states began passing their own hate
crime laws.a Today, 46 states, the District of Columbia, and
two U.S. territories have hate crime laws, though they vary
in many ways. Some of these differences include what
types of bias are included, whether these laws require
data collection or victim support services, and more.

affects everyone in the United States.”

-Vanita Gupta, President & CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights, May 2017.

The exact dates or first states are debated, as some state civil rights laws could be considered
hate crime laws.

HATE VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES
Research finds that many communities in the United
States experience hate violence. In 2017, a nationally
representative survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
Health found that 42% of Black people and 38% of
Native Americans have experienced racial violence, and
further that 51% of LGBTQ people have experienced antiLGBTQ violence.7 Reported violent deaths of transgender
people—and especially Black transgender women—
reach new record highs each year. As shown in Figure 1
on the next page, hate crimes have increased in recent
years, with particularly dramatic spikes in crimes based on
religion, disability, gender, and multiple biases.
As defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), a hate crime is a “committed criminal offense which
is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es)
against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”8 Even if the person
who committed the crime was mistaken about another
person’s actual race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or
other characteristics, it is still a hate crime because it was
motivated by the victim’s or victims’ (perceived) identity.
Hate crimes can also refer to violence committed against
a place or institution, such as a church, synagogue, or
community center. It is increasingly common to refer to
hate crimes as bias crimes or bias-motivated crimes.
While there are substantial data limitations (discussed
in greater detail on pages 26-28), there are currently two
key federal sources for national data on hate crimes: the
FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and the
Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization
Survey (NCVS). The FBI’s UCR Program collects data on
hate crimes by relying on voluntary participation by law
enforcement agencies across the country.9 Notably, only
a subset of law enforcement agencies participates in
UCR efforts, and only a fraction of those actually report
any hate crime incidents in a given year.
By contrast, the NCVS is an annual survey of a
nationally representative sample of roughly 160,000
people across the country and their experiences of crime
over the past year.10 Because the NCVS communicates
directly with people in the United States, the NCVS
captures experiences of hate crimes and hate violence
more broadly, regardless of whether these crimes
were reported to law enforcement or whether law
enforcement reported them to the FBI. (For discussion of

why people may not report to law enforcement, or why
law enforcement may not report to the FBI, see page
pages 26-28.) As a result, the NCVS offers a much more
detailed look into the scope and patterns of hate crime
in the United States.
In 2019 alone, FBI data show an average of over
20 hate crimes reported per day: 11 hate crimes based
on race or ethnicity, four based on religion, four based
on sexual orientation or gender identity, and at least one
other hate crime (based on disability, gender, or multiple
biases) every day.
FBI data also show that annual reported hate
crimes are increasing, as shown in Figure 1. Since 2013,
the annual number of reported hate crimes by each type
of bias—race or ethnicity, religion, disability, gender,
sexual orientation and gender identity (LGBTQ), as well as
multiple-bias crimes—have all increased.b
There are many potential reasons for the observed
rise in hate crimes, including more people reporting
their experiences, increased or improved reporting by
law enforcement, and an actual increase in hate crime
incidents. That said, there is significant evidence of
increased hate crime in recent years. For example, the
increase in reported hate crimes is happening despite
concurrent nationwide decreases in other types of
violent crime.11 In another example, overall reported
violent deaths and murders of transgender people—and
especially Black transgender women—are on the rise, as
shown in Figure 2 on page 4. These are reports made in the
media and by local community members and advocates.
In many, if not most, of these cases, law enforcement did
not treat or report these murders as hate crimes.
Importantly, the statistics shown here reflect only
the hate crimes reported to law enforcement and then
to the FBI (Figure 1) or those reported on by media or
community advocates (Figure 2). As discussed next,
many more hate crimes were committed but never
reported, so the numbers shown here are only a fraction
or minimum estimate of the widespread violence
occurring across the country. Some advocates refer to
this as the “justice gap,”12 or the significant gap between
the actual total experiences of hate crimes across the
country and the extremely few hate crimes that are
actually reported and appropriately responded to by the
criminal justice system.
b

The FBI first began reporting incidents based on gender identity in 2013, so analyses in this
report begin that year.

Figure 1: Reported Hate Crimes in the United States Are Increasing
Number of FBI Reported Hate Crimes by Bias Type, 2013-2019

7,178

5,928

1,031
1,264

1,014
1,115

4,047

3,963

12%

3,489

3,310

3,216

24%

Total

4,134
3,526

7,314

7,120

6,121

5,850

5,479

2013-2019
% Change

Race/Ethnicity

1,244

1,273

1,167

1,200

1,564

•

1,249

1,419

1,521

1,364

1,393

10%
LGBTQ

48%
Religion

211

3417%

Multi-Bias

159

157

Disability

116
84

18
6
2013

2014

2015

I•

Total

•

Race/Ethnicity

2016
Religion

283%

Gender

•

89%

LGBTQ

2017

2018

•

Disability

•

Gender

2019

•

Multi-Bias

Note: “LGBTQ” is the sum of all single-bias incidents based on either sexual orientation or gender identity, and does not include incidents based on “gender” or multiple-bias incidents.
Source: FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Hate Crimes, 2013-2019. www.ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime.

Figure 2: Reported Violent Deaths of U.S. Transgender People Are Increasing

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Note: These are only those that are known and accurately reported. Many transgender people’s deaths are unknown due to misgendering in reporting, among other factors.
Source: MAP compilation of annual tracking by Trans Murder Monitoring (TMM) Project, HRC, and others of violent deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people. Details
available upon request.

Figure 3 on the next page illustrates the significant gap
between the FBI’s UCR Program’s database of reported
hate crimes and overall hate crime experiences of people
living in the United States, as collected by the Department
of Justice’s NCVS. The NCVS data show that, from 2013 to
2017, an average of 204,600 “hate crime victimizations”
were experienced every year—but only 7,500 hate crimes
were eventually reported by law enforcement to the FBI’s
UCR Program. By these estimates, only 3.6% of all hate
crimes were actually reported to the FBI each year.
Put another way, while the FBI’s 2019 data show an
average of 20 hate crimes reported per day, the NCVS
data suggest closer to 556 hate crime incidents per
day.c Not all incidents reported in the NCVS may meet
a legal definition of a hate crime, but the enormous
disparity reflects the extent to which hate crimes are
currently underreported.

Compared to the FBI’s numbers of incidents
reported by law enforcement, the NCVS survey of
people living in the United States shows far higher
rates of hate crimes overall and far higher rates of
hate crimes based on gender, sexual orientation,
and disability. As shown in Figure 4, over the five-year
period of 2013-2017, crimes based on gender or sexual
orientation comprised less than 20% of all reported
hate crimes to the FBI, but over half (nearly 53%) of all
crimes reported to the NCVS. This again shows that the
commonly cited FBI statistics on hate crimes are only a
tiny fraction of the scope of violence facing vulnerable
communities, including LGBTQ and disabled people.

Figure 4: National Crime Victimization Survey Shows
Significantly More Hate Crimes Based on Sexual Orientation,
Gender, and Disability Than FBI Reporting Suggests
% of reported hate crimes in NCVS vs. FBI based on...
57%

Race/Ethnicity

Religion

Sexual
Orientation

Gender

Disability

60%

e::.
8%

19%

I 18%I 26%

~ 1.8%

27%

16%

1.4%

I•

NCVS

• I
FBI

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and
FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics, 2013-2017. Via Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2019, “Hate Crimes
Statistics,” Appendix Table 2.
c

The FBI reported 7,314 hate crimes in 2019 (Figure 1). If that 7,314 represents only 3.6% of
hate crimes that were actually experienced, that suggests over 203,000 hate crimes occurred
in 2019—an estimate roughly consistent with the NCVS reported average of 204,600 per
year (Figure 3). Converting from an annual total to a daily average, this means over 556 hate
crimes were committed per day in 2019.

Figure 3: Fewer than Four of Every 100 Hate Crimes Are Actually Reported to the FBI
Average annual hate crime reporting in NCVS vs. FBI’s UCR, 2013-2017

204,600

hate crime victimizations per year

tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Of those...

101,900

are reported to police

tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
tttttttttttttttttttt
45,600

are reported to police and described by the victim as a hate crime

tttttttttttttttttttttt
15,200
are designated by police as a hate crime

ttttttt
7,500

are reported by police to FBI as a hate crime

ttt,
Note: Data shown reflect annual averages based on 2013-2017 data.
Source: Dr. Barbara Oudekerk. 2019. “Hate Crimes Statistics.” Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Anti-Transgender Violence

•

Many transgender people, particularly Black transgender women, face enormous barriers to their safety, health, and
well-being. More than three out of five (62%) transgender people experienced discrimination in the past year alone,d
and nearly three out of ten (29%) transgender people are living in poverty—a rate roughly twice that of cisgender
straight people.e For transgender people of color, rates of poverty are even higher, at 43% for Latinx transgender
people, 41% for American Indian transgender people, and 38% for Black transgender people.f This pervasive economic
and social risk leaves transgender people especially vulnerable to violence, as they are less likely to have the means
or other options available to protect themselves from dangerous situations.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is an annual and nationally representative federal survey on people’s
experiences of crime over the past year, including hate crimes. A recent study by The Williams Institute of NCVS data
showed that transgender people are consistently more likely to be the victims of crime than non-transgender people:g

more
likely
to experience a
violent crime

Transgender people are over four times more likely to experience violent crimes,
compared to cisgender people.

more
likely
to experience a
property crime

Households with a transgender person are more than twice as likely to experience
property crime, such as burglary or theft, compared to households with only
cisgender people.

1 4

Among transgender women who experienced a violent crime in the past year, one
in four thought the incident was a hate crime.

What’s more, reported murders and violent deaths of transgender people are increasing, as shown in Figure 2, with
2020 setting a record for the deadliest year yet and 2021 already on pace to break that record.h
In response to the ongoing and increasing rates of violence against transgender people, some advocates and politicians
have sought to add gender identity protections to existing hate crime laws. As shown in Table 1, currently only 23
states, D.C., and two territories include gender identity. However, even in cases where gender identity is protected,
there is often a gap between that legal protection and actual enforcement. For example, the Matthew Shepard and
James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which added sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crime
law, was passed in 2009. Yet, the first federal prosecution of a case involving a transgender person did not occur until
2016, despite the clear record of violent crime and murders of transgender people nationwide.i
Additionally, the growing attention to the many harms of the criminal justice system—including its disproportionate
impacts on people of color and LGBTQ people—is influencing potential policy responses to hate violence. Many in
the transgender community, and in the LGBTQ community more broadly, are increasingly calling for different policy
reforms that focus instead on bolstering the economic security and safety of transgender people and reducing the
stigma toward transgender people that often fuels hate violence.j
d
e
f
g
h
i
j

Center for American Progress. October 2020. The State of the LGBTQ Community in 2020: A National Public Opinion Study. Washington, D.C.
M.V. Lee Badgett, Soon Kyu Choi, and Bianca Wilson. October 2019. LGBT Poverty in the United States: A Study of Differences between sexual orientation and gender identity groups. Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.
Sandy James, et al. 2016. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). Washington D.C.: NCTE.
Andrew Flores, et al. 2021. “Gender Identity Disparities in Criminal Victimization: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017–2018.” American Journal of Public Health 111(4): 726-729.
Anagha Srikanth. 2021. “Almost twice as many transgender Americans have been killed as this time last year.” The Hill, April 13.
Phil McCausland. 2016. “Man Pleads Guilty to First Federal Charge of Hate Crime Against Transgender Person.” NBC News, December 21.
See for example the following policy agendas, each of which either omits hate crime laws or focus on the non-carceral elements of hate crime laws (e.g., data collection) as part of a broader policy
response to anti-transgender violence: Transgender Law Center’s Trans Agenda for Liberation (2020); The National LGBTQ Anti-Poverty Network’s LGBTQ+ Priorities for the Next Presidential Term
(2021); and HRC’s 2020 Blueprint for Positive Change (2020), among others.

•

The Rise in Anti-Asian Hate Violence During COVID-19
Anti-Asian racism and violence are centuries-old parts of American history and policy. The Page Exclusion Act of 1875,
for example, was the country’s first restrictive immigration law, and it specifically tried to block Chinese and Japanese
women from immigrating to the United States for fear that they were or would become sex workers.k This law was
quickly followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and later federal laws further restricted immigration by other
communities, including Hindu, East Indian, and Japanese people.
As with other forms of hate, increases in anti-Asian discrimination often coincide with broader national and
international events.l During World War II, the U.S. government effectively incarcerated tens of thousands of Japanese
Americans, and there was widespread and overt anti-Japanese rhetoric throughout popular culture. During and after
the Vietnam War, anti-Asian discrimination and harassment were pervasive. In 1982, amid nationalist fears about the
growing economic strength of Japan and its impact on the U.S. economy, a Detroit man named Vincent Chin was
murdered because he was thought to be Japanese.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought a clear increase in anti-Asian harassment, violence, and hate crimes in the
United States, as shown in the examples that follow. This increase was fueled, at least in part, by former President
Trump’s rhetoric throughout the pandemic, including his use of racist language to refer to the virus.m

150%

Increase in antiAsian hate crimes

1 in 3

Experienced racial
slurs or jokes

3,800

Reports of anti-Asian
hate incidents

Research by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism showed a nearly 150%
increase in anti-Asian hate crimes from 2019 to 2020, based on police statistics
from the country’s 16 largest cities.n

In a nationally representative Pew Research survey, both Asian and Black adults are
more likely than white and Hispanic adults to say that racism toward their racial or
ethnic group has become more commonplace since the pandemic began.o The same
survey shows that, since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly one in three (31%)
Asian adults have experienced racial slurs or racist jokes, and one quarter (26%)
have feared someone might threaten or physically attack them.

The national coalition Stop AAPI Hate received nearly 3,800 reports of anti-Asian
hate incidents in the past year, or more than ten incidents per day.p Incidents were
reported in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and more than two-thirds (68%)
of reported incidents were against Asian women.

In March 2021, eight people—six of whom were Asian women working in spas and massage parlors—were murdered
by a white gunman in Atlanta, Georgia. In an echo of the Page Act of 1875, the shooter’s “explanation” of his actions
referenced “sexual addiction” and “temptation,” pointing to the sexual and racial stereotypes still commonly held
about Asian women. Whether or not the women murdered in Atlanta were themselves sex workers, as Asian women
and as massage workers, they were vulnerable to racialized and sexualized violence rooted in prejudice toward sex
workers, Asian women, and immigrants—a reality also reflected in the fact that, as noted above, more than two-thirds
of reported anti-Asian hate incidents during the COVID pandemic were committed against Asian women.
k
l
m
n
o
p

Isaac Chotiner. 2021. “The History of Anti-Asian-American Violence.” The New Yorker, March 25.
Liz Mineo. 2021. “The Scapegoating of Asian Americans.” The Harvard Gazette, March 24.
Yulin Hswen, et al. 2021. “Association of “#covid19”Versus “#chinesevirus”With Anti-Asian Sentiments on Twitter: March 9–23, 2020.” American Journal of Public Health. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2021.306154.
Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism. March 2021. “Anti-Asian Hate Crime Reported to Police in America’s Largest Cities: 2020.” California State University, San Bernardino.
Pew Research Center. July 2020. “Many Black and Asian Americans Say They Have Experienced Discrimination Amid the COVID-19 Outbreak.”
Russell Jeung, Aggie Yellow Horse, Tara Popovic, and Richard Lim. March 2021. Stop AAPI Hate National Report: 3/19/20 – 2/28/21. Stop AAPI Hate.

•

This shooting, combined with the increase in hate violence toward Asian people during the pandemic, has reignited
discussions about how to address, and ultimately stop, hate-motivated violence and discrimination. Some have called for
stronger hate crime legislation or enforcement of existing hate crime laws.q The Atlanta shooting, for example, occurred less
than a year after Georgia enacted a hate crime law, with many describing the event as the first test of the state’s new law.r
However, the call for hate crime legislation or prosecution is not universal, including within Asian American communities,
where advocates are thinking more holistically about how to address violence and to provide supports to communities
at risk. The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, for example, called for a response rooted in community
investment, rather than law enforcement: “We need a response to these attacks that centers Asian American women
and elders. Intentional centering of women and elders must result in true aid, community support, government support,
and an emphasis on our lived experiences, so that relief flows to those who need it most. We do not need more law
enforcement—time and time again, more law enforcement did not lead to protection and safety. It instead leads to
more violence aimed at and control of Black and Brown communities, including our own community members.”s
This rise in anti-AAPI hate crimes during COVID-19 illustrates both the continuing prevalence of hate violence in the
United States, and—as explored in more detail throughout this report—the evolving responses to and understanding
of the role of hate crime law in addressing hate.
q
r
s

Nicholas Wu. 2021. “Lawmakers to introduce anti-hate crime legislation amid rise in anti-Asian hate and violence.” USA Today, March 11.
Astead Herndon and Stephanie Saul. 2021. “Why Some Georgia Lawmakers Want Last Week’s Shootings Labeled Hate Crimes.” The New York Times, March 21.
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. 2021. “Condemn Hate and Violence Against Asian American Women.”

NATIONAL POLICY LANDSCAPE:
HATE CRIME LAW
One way that governments and policymakers
have responded to hate-motivated crime and violence
is through the passage of hate crime laws. Generally
speaking, these laws make it punishable under criminal
law to commit certain acts if they were committed in
whole or in part because of the victim’s actual or perceived
identity. Some of these laws focus narrowly on specific
intimidation tactics or vandalism, like burning a cross or
vandalizing a place of worship. Other hate crime laws take
a broader scope, making it a crime to harm, intimidate,
or threaten someone because of their membership in a
protected class, such as race, religion, or gender.
Hate crime laws vary immensely in their scope and
implementation (as discussed in more detail in the
following pages). At a basic level, a common feature is to
increase punishments for certain acts (which may or may
not already be criminalized) if they are committed because
of the victim’s identity. In short, this means that if a person
is convicted of a hate crime, they are likely to receive a
harsher punishment, as compared to a similar crime not
motivated by bias toward the victim. Depending on the
law’s details, these harsher punishments can include

longer or additional prison sentences, higher financial
fines, denial of opportunities for parole or non-prison
sentencing options, and much more.
Policymakers can and do respond to hate-motivated
crime and violence in other ways. This can include
creating and funding programs to prevent violence,
supporting community-based response systems,
improving data collection and reporting on hate crime,
and more. In many cases, these responses are included
as provisions in a hate crime bill, but they can also be
created or amended independently.
This report focuses specifically on state hate crime
laws and related responses to hate violence, including
the many ways these policies and responses vary across
states. However, it is important to first briefly examine
federal hate crime law and the interplay between federal
and state laws.

Federal Hate Crime Law
The earliest federal hate crime laws were passed
following the Civil War in response to widespread racist
and white supremacist violence in the years following the
war. The Ku Klux Klan Act, also known as the Civil Rights
Act of 1871, made it a federal crime to conspire to deprive

others of their civil rights, such as through intimidation
or interference.13 The law remains in effect today and
continues to be used in certain cases.14
The first modern federal hate crime law was passed
as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and, like the Klan
Act before it, was largely in response to racially motivated
violence. In particular, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was
passed on the heels of the 1967 “race riots” and civil unrest
throughout the country, including those in the days after
the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April 1968.
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 included many provisions,
including what is more commonly known as the Fair
Housing Act. The law’s hate crime provisions made it a
federal crime to harm or intimidate someone because of
their race, color, religion, or national origin while the victim
was attempting to engage in federally protected activities,
including public education, employment, jury service,
traveling, and using places of public accommodations.15
Since 1968, federal hate crime law has grown in
multiple ways. For example, in 1990, Congress passed
the Hate Crime Statistics Act, requiring the federal
government to collect data regarding hate crimes based
on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.16 This
began the annual tracking of hate crimes by the FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reporting Program, as discussed in the
previous section (see Figure 1).
In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
Hate Crimes Prevention Act expanded federal hate crime
law in several ways.17 First, it removed the original 1968
requirement—for crimes based on race, color, religion, or
national origin—that the crime be committed while the
victim was participating in specific federally protected
activities.18 Second, it allowed the federal government to
prosecute violent hate crimes based on gender, sexual
orientation, gender identity, and disability, but only if
those crimes “affected interstate or foreign commerce
or occurred within federal special maritime or territorial
jurisdiction.” Third, the law further expanded federal
data collection requirements to include crimes based on
gender and gender identity. Finally, the law expanded
federal jurisdiction over hate crimes such that the
federal government can aid states in their investigations
and, in cases where the federal government determines
that a state may not have adequately protected civil
rights, to permit the federal government to intervene to
protect civil rights. See page 33 for discussion of recently
proposed legislation to further expand or strengthen
federal hate crime laws.

State Hate Crime Law
States first began passing hate crime laws in the
1980s. Today, 46 states, the District of Columbia (D.C.), and
two U.S. territories (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands)
have hate crime laws, though they vary in many ways.
Currently, only four states and three territories lack a hate
crime law.
Notably, two of those four states without a hate
crime law—Arkansas and Indiana—have policies related
to hate crimes, but they do not have “true” hate crime
laws. This is discussed in further detail on the next page.
The most recent state to pass a hate crime law was
Georgia. Georgia’s law was signed in June 2020 following
the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man
who was murdered by three white men while he was out
for a run.19 In April 2021, Arkansas passed a law related
to hate crimes, but, as discussed on the next page, the
law’s language is so vague and generic that by potentially
applying to any crime, it provides no meaningful
protections against hate crimes.20
Early versions of hate crime laws were often called
“ethnic intimidation statutes,” before such violence
became more commonly referred to as hate crimes in the
1980s. In states like Michigan and Ohio, which have not
updated their hate crime statutes since first enacted, the
law still takes the form of an ethnic intimidation statute.21
Beyond the common feature of penalty
enhancements for certain actions motivated by bias, hate
crime statutes and related laws vary widely from state to
state. Key dimensions of state hate crime law include:

• Criminal punishment
• Statute type (distinct crime vs. general sentencing
statutes)

• Protected classes
• Institutional vandalism
• Collateral consequences

for those convicted of a

hate crime

• Non-prison sentencing options
• Avenues for civil action, in addition to criminal action
• Victim protections and support
• Data collection and reporting
• Training for law enforcement

This section provides a detailed look at some of the
many dimensions of hate crime laws at the state level.
Importantly, some of these dimensions, such as a right
to civil action or requirements for data collection, may
exist independently of the hate crime laws themselves.
This means that even states without an explicit hate
crime law may still have statutes related to hate violence.

prison time). Depending on the details of the law, harsher
punishments can include longer or additional sentences,
higher financial fines, denial of opportunities for parole or
non-prison sentencing options, and much more.
Figure 5 shows the 46 states, D.C., and two territories

with hate crime laws—all of which operate within the
criminal legal system to respond to hate crimes. Of these,
North Dakota has an especially distinct and potentially
weaker hate crimes law. North Dakota’s statute
requires the crime to have a link to “discrimination in
public facilities”—language more similar to an antidiscrimination law than other states’ hate crime laws.
Additionally, as reported by the Brennan Center,
“lawmakers and law enforcement within North Dakota
do not believe they have a hate crimes law, and that no
one has even been charged of a hate crime under [the
state law].”22 Nonetheless, the law—even if limited in
scope or use—covers criminal acts committed because
of specific personal characteristics, and is therefore
included here.

Criminal Punishment
Currently, 46 states, D.C., and two U.S. territories (49
in total) have hate crime laws. While these laws vary in
many ways, a common element is their use of criminal
punishment. If a crime is committed and motivated by hate
or bias toward a protected class, hate crime laws allow for
the punishing of that action through the criminal system—
particularly through the use of sentencing “enhancements.”
Sentencing enhancements create harsher punishments
compared to a similar crime committed without bias. For
example, under New York’s hate crime law, a designation
of a hate crime increases the crime by a category (e.g.,
from a Class D to a Class C felony, lengthening potential

Figure 5: Nearly All States Have a Hate Crime Law, Allowing Harsher Punishments
for Those Convicted of Crimes Motivated by Hate
WA
NH
MT

ND*
MN

OR
ID

NV
UT

PA
IL

OH
VA

TN
AR*

SC
AL

CT
NJ

MS
AK

IN*

MA
RI

DE
MD
DC

■

Hate crime law (46 states, D.C.,
2 territories)

No hate crime law (see note)
(4 states, 3 territories)
State hate crime law also
prohibits leniency in sentencing
or early release if convicted of a
hate crime (6 states)

LA
FL

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: Arkansas and Indiana have laws that cover bias-motivated crimes, as well as many other types of crimes, but they are not “true” hate crime laws because they are written so broadly they
could be applied to virtually any circumstance, which is at odds with both the structure and purpose of hate crime law. North Dakota has a hate crime law and it enumerates specific classes, but its
structure is more similar to an anti-discrimination law than to other states’ hate crime laws.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Two states—Arkansas and Indiana—have recently
enacted laws that include bias-motivated crimes, among
many other types of crimes, but they do not have “true”
hate crime laws as found in other states. Both states’
laws are written so broadly that they could be applied
to virtually any circumstance, which is at odds with both
the structure and purpose of hate crime law. For example,
Indiana’s law refers to offenses committed “with bias due to
the victim’s or the group’s real or perceived characteristic,
trait, belief, practice, association, or other attribute,”
without defining what may or may not be included in each
of these terms and without regard for an actual history of
targeted violence against such traits. As a result, “practice”
could include playing a musical instrument, while “trait”
or “attribute” could include having dyed hair. Belief or
association, advocates argue, could be applied so broadly
as to protect even hate groups like white supremacists or
Neo-Nazis.23 As a result of the overly broad applicability
disconnected from a history of targeted violence, the
lack of explicitly named characteristics (such as race or
disability), and the “clear departure from the approach
taken in any other hate crime law” in the country, the
policies in Arkansas and Indiana are not “true” hate crime
laws and are therefore not included in this report.24

Figure 5 further shows that six states have provisions
that prohibit leniency in sentencing and/or prohibit early
release. Returning to the example of New York, the hate
crime law both creates sentencing enhancements and
it also prohibits a person convicted of a hate crime from
receiving early release or parole. This means that a crime
that usually carries a penalty of, for example, 5-10 years
in prison would automatically be upgraded to one with
a penalty of 10-20 years—and further that the person, if
convicted, would not be allowed to receive parole. While
the specifics of these provisions vary across these six
states, they all illustrate the focus on harsher punishment
at the core of many hate crime laws.

Statute Type: Distinct Crime vs. General
Sentencing
Hate crime laws create enhanced penalties through
one of two main ways: using a distinct hate crime
statute to create a new, independent crime, or by
using general sentencing statutes to identify what
characteristics (e.g., bias motivation) of an underlying
crime (e.g., assault) may justify enhanced sentencing.
Typically, distinct statutes define what a hate crime is,

Figure 6: Most, Though Not All, State Hate Crime Laws Create Distinct Crimes
Rather than Adding to General Sentencing Statutes
WA
NH
MT

OR
ID

PA
IL

TN
AR

SC
AL

LA
FL

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

L.J
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

CT
NJ

MS
AK

MA
RI

U.S. Virgin Islands

DE
MD
DC

Hate crime law creates distinct
crime and uses general
sentencing statutes (4 states)
Hate crime law creates distinct
crime only (36 states , D.C.,
1 territory)
Hate crime law uses general
sentencing statutes only (6 states,
1 territory)
No hate crime law (4 states,
3 territories)

enumerate protected classes, and establish penalties.
In general sentencing statutes, the hate crime provision
typically indicates that selecting a victim based on
enumerated protected classes should be considered
as an aggravating factor—therefore causing harsher
punishments—when sentencing. Other common
aggravating factors include carrying a firearm and
having previously been charged with a crime.
This means that with a distinct statute, a person
could be charged with two separate crimes (e.g., assault
and a hate crime) and convicted and punished for one,
both, or neither.t With a general sentencing statute, a
person could be charged with a crime like assault, but
the punishment may be harsher if they are found to have
committed that crime due to bias against a protected
characteristic, as compared to a punishment for a simple
assault not motivated by prejudice.
Having a distinct statute and a general sentencing
statute are not mutually exclusive. Because some distinct
hate crime statutes define hate crimes to include only
a specific list of certain crimes, having this additional
sentencing statute is not necessarily redundant. For
example, if a distinct statute defines hate crimes as
only physical injury to a person, a crime of vandalizing
someone’s home or property would not constitute a hate
crime. However, it could be considered an aggravating
factor through the broader sentencing statute.
As shown in Figure 6 on the previous page, 36 states,
D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands (38 in total) have only
distinct hate crime statutes. Six states and Puerto Rico
use only general sentencing statutes to create hate crime
laws. Four states have both distinct hate crime statutes
and provisions within the general sentencing statutes, as
shown in Figure 6.
Distinct statutes may be preferable to general
sentencing statutes for at least two reasons. First, distinct
statutes enable greater clarity about the nature of the
crime, as these statutes articulate what constitutes a
hate crime. Such clarity can potentially better serve the
stated goals of reducing and addressing hate-motivated
violence by, for example, enabling more precise data
collection or more effective hate crimes training for law
enforcement. Second, because distinct statutes define
what constitutes a hate crime, they can also outline what
specific punishments—or alternatives to punishments—
ought to be applied. While relatively few states overall
offer alternatives such as required community service or
anti-bias training programs (see page 18), the only states

that do are those with distinct statutes. That said, the only
states that prevent leniency in sentencing or early parole
for those convicted of hate crimes, as shown in Figure 5,
are also states with distinct statutes.

Protected Categories
Hate crime laws generally enumerate, or specifically
list, particular characteristics of people—such as race,
religion, or disability—that are either immutable traits
and/or those often targeted for discrimination and hatemotivated violence. Frequently these categories mirror
broader federal and state civil rights laws, but these
protected classes still vary across states.
All of the 46 states, D.C., and two territories (49 in
total) that have hate crime statutes specifically address
crimes committed based on someone’s race, ethnicity, and
religion, a core set that mirrors early protections under
federal law and early state hate crime laws.u However,
there is considerable variation across states when it comes
to additional categories such as disability, sex or gender,
sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and more. This
leaves a patchwork of protections for some communities
depending on where they live. It can also limit data
collection efforts, as data are typically (though not always)
only collected on categories enumerated by state laws.
As stated previously, Arkansas and Indiana have
policies related to bias-motivated crimes, but these are
not true hate crime laws. Additionally, neither state’s
hate-crime-related statute enumerates any specific
protected classes.25
As shown in Figure 7 on the next page, five states
enumerate only the core set of race, ethnicity, and religion.
The remaining 43 jurisdictions enumerate additional
classes, such as disability, sexual orientation, age, and
more. Commonly enumerated categories are shown in
Table 1 and summarized here:

• Race, Ethnicity, and National Origin: 46 states, D.C.,
and two territories (49 total)

• Religion: 46 states, D.C. and two territories (49 total)
• Disability: 34 states, D.C, and two territories (37 total)
• Sex or Gender: 33 states, D.C., and two territories (36
total)
t
u

Unless the state specifically restricts the number of provisions used to punish a hate crime.
“Race” may instead be “color.” “Ethnicity” may instead be “ethnic origin,” “national origin,”
or “ancestry.” “Religion” may instead be “religious beliefs” or “creed.” However, the summary
language of “race, ethnicity, and religion” is used by many researchers and advocates.

• Sexual

Orientation: 33 states, D.C., and two
territories (36 total)

law enforcement officer or first responder to their hate
crime statutes (see Challenges section and Figure 16).

• Gender Identity: 23 states, D.C., and two territories

In 24 states, D.C., and one territory (26 total),
hate crime laws refer to the “actual or perceived”
characteristics of people who experience hate crimes.
This means that, for example, a hate crime motivated
by anti-Muslim bias would still be a hate crime even if
the victim were not actually Muslim. This is because the
victim was selected because of their perceived identity,
even if that perception was incorrect.

(26 total)

• Age: 12 states, D.C., and two territories (15 total)
Additional categories in some states include
homelessness, political affiliation or beliefs, “involvement
in civil rights or human rights activity,” and association
with a person in a protected category, among others.
More recently, six states have added employment as a

Figure 7: All State Hate Crime Laws Enumerate Race, Ethnicity, and Religion; Most
State Hate Crime Laws Also Enumerate Additional Classes
WA
NH
MT

OR
ID

PA
IL

■

TN
AR

SC
AL

CT
NJ

MS
AK

MA
RI

DE
MD
DC

Hate crime law enumerates
race, ethnicity, religion, and 3+
additional classes (30 states, D.C.,
2 territories)
Hate crime law enumerates race,

religion, and 1-2 additional
■ ethnicity,
classes (11 states)

■

Hate crime law enumerates only race,
ethnicity, and religion (5 states)

No hate crime law (4 states,
3 territories)

FL
HI

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: “Additional classes” does not include the use of “actual or perceived” language or employment as law enforcement, which is instead shown in Figure 16. See Table 1 for further detail on
additional enumerated classes in each state. “Race” may instead or also be “color.” “Ethnicity” may instead be “ethnic origin,” “national origin,” “ancestry,” or similar others. “Religion” may instead
be “religious beliefs” or “creed.”
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Table 1A: State Hate Crime Laws Vary Widely in Enumerated Classes

(continued on next page)

State

Actual or
Perceived

Race, Ethnicity/
National Origin,
& Religion

Disability

Sex/Gender

Sexual
Orientation

Gender
Identity

Age

Totals

24 + D.C.

46 + D.C.

34 + D.C.

33 + D.C.

23 + D.C.

12 + D.C.

0
0
0

0
0

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona

State lacks a hate crime law

Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut

0
0
0

Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii

0
0
0
0

Idaho
Illinois

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

Iowa

Kentucky
Louisiana

Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi

0
0

Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada

New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico

0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0

0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0

0
0

State lacks a hate crime law

Indiana

Kansas

0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0

0
0

0
0
0
0
0

0
0

Table 1A: State Hate Crime Laws Vary Widely in Enumerated Classes
State
New York

Actual or
Perceived

North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon

Pennsylvania
Rhode Island

Race, Ethnicity/
National Origin,
& Religion

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

Disability

Texas

Vermont

0
0

Virginia
Washington

West Virginia
Wisconsin

0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0

Age

0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0

0
State lacks a hate crime law

Wyoming
Totals

Gender
Identity

State lacks a hate crime law

South Dakota

Utah

Sexual
Orientation

South Carolina

Tennessee

Sex/Gender

(continued from previous page)

24 + D.C.

46 + D.C.

34 + D.C.

33 + D.C.

23 + D.C.

12 + D.C.

Overall note: Some states enumerate additional classes beyond what are shown in this table, such as homelessness or political affiliation.
Category notes: “Race” may also or instead be “color.” “Religion” may instead be “creed” or “religious beliefs.” “Ethnicity” may instead be “ethnic origin,” “national origin,” “ancestry,” or similar others.
“Sex/Gender” refers to whether a state lists sex, gender, or both; five states (DE, HI, MA, NV, OR) that do not list sex or gender are included because they do list gender identity, which by definition also
covers gender. In some states listed as enumerating gender identity, this may be via the definition of sexual orientation or through explicit confirmations that gender applies to gender identity (e.g., GA, TN).
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Table 1B: The Two Territories with Hate Crime Laws Enumerate Many Classes
State

Actual or
Perceived

Race, Ethnicity/
National Origin,
& Religion

Disability

Sex/Gender

Sexual
Orientation

American Samoa

Territory lacks a hate crime law

Guam

Territory lacks a hate crime law

Northern Mariana
Islands

Territory lacks a hate crime law

Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands

0
0

Gender
Identity

0
0

Age

0
0

Note: Both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands enumerate additional classes beyond what are shown in this table, and in fact have two of the more expansive lists of enumerated classes of
any U.S hate crime law.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Institutional Vandalism
16

exist separately or independently. This means that some
states with hate crime laws may not have an institutional
vandalism law (e.g., Alaska)v, and some states with
institutional vandalism laws may not have a hate crime
law (e.g., Arkansas or Indiana).

People are often the target of bias-motivated
violence, but such violence can also take the form of
desecration or vandalism to buildings (such as LGBTQ
community centers), businesses (such as Black-owned
stores), or institutions (such as schools or religious sites).

Figure 8 shows that, overall, 35 states, D.C., and two
territories (38 in total) have institutional vandalism statutes
of some kind. Additionally, in 10 states and one territory,
the institutional vandalism statute specifically includes or
refers to “community centers” as a protected institution.

Institutional vandalism statutes define the distinct
crime of targeting specific types of property—sometimes
including properties associated with specific groups—
and outline specific penalties for this crime. This can
acknowledge the harm caused by hate violence that targets
meaningful places or property, even if no person was
physically harmed by the crime. Historically, these statutes
included religious institutions and burial grounds, and
many also included government buildings or educational
facilities. Beginning in the 1980s, states began adding
community centers to these statutes as well. The specific
properties or institutions protected vary across states.

Collateral Consequences
At least eleven states have statutes that create
additional consequences for those convicted of a hate
crime, as shown in Figure 9. These consequences are
in addition to incarceration or other requirements at
sentencing. These statutes may be intended to minimize
Some states that do not have institutional vandalism statutes may have hate crime laws, and
these hate crime laws may define hate crimes to include crimes against property (e.g., Idaho).
As a result, bias-motivated vandalism might still be punishable even in those states without
institutional vandalism statutes.

In some cases, institutional vandalism statutes are
part of a broader hate crime law, though sometimes they

Figure 8: Roughly Two-Thirds of States Have Institutional Vandalism Laws, Making it a Crime to Target
Specific Types of Property Because of their Association with Protected Groups
WA
NH
MT

ME*

TX
C

NJ
WV

DE*

TN
AR

SC
MS

MA C
RI C

C PA

NV
C

■

Institutional vandalism statute
(35 states, D.C., 2 territories)

□

No institutional vandalism statute
(15 states, 3 territories)

Institutional vandalism statute
enumerates community centers
(10 states, 1 territory)

LA
C

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

rJ
0

Guam

Puerto Rico*

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: Maine and Puerto Rico’s institutional vandalism laws do not specifically mention community centers, but they do include language that could apply to community centers. Additionally, bias-motivated
vandalism may still be punishable in some states without institutional vandalism laws, if the state has a hate crime law that defines hate crimes to include crimes against property (not shown here); e.g., ID,
MI, MT, NE, WA).
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

the chance of future harm, but in some cases, they can
also limit access to important opportunities like anti-bias
education or diversion programs.

individual state departments charged with hiring
or licensing create rules for identifying when an
individual who has committed a hate crime can be
considered rehabilitated.

• Five states have statutes that require that a longer

sentence is served. These statutes are distinct
from those requiring penalty enhancements at the
time of sentencing. Rather, these statutes prevent
participation in alternative sentencing programs
(AL, IL), do not allow for the accrual of time credits
by completing a course of education (IL), or do not
allow merit-based early release (NY, VT). These states
are also noted in Figure 5.

• Five states have statutes that result in heightened

• Four states disqualify those convicted of a hate crime

• Three states prohibit owning a firearm if convicted

scrutiny or tracking, including: mandatory DNA
collection (LA); sending juvenile records to the
perpetrator’s school (MN); addition to a Predatory
Offender Registry, if certain conditions are met (MN);
ineligibility to have the conviction set aside (OR);
and having the conviction count towards habitual
offender status (MA, MN, OH).

from some forms of work, with varying conditions.
In Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Wisconsin,
this includes disqualification from employment
by some state departments, professional licensing
required for certain professions, foster care work,
and/or volunteer service. A fifth state, Virginia, has
such barriers, but they can be removed by a circuit
court judge, following a petition. Other states, such
as Ohio, provide similar barriers, but also require that

of a hate crime (MN, NJ, OR).
Other less common forms of collateral consequences
include the ineligibility to sue for damages for an
injury resulting from commission of the offense (MN);
forfeiture of vehicle, if used to commit the crime (OR);
and empowering a landlord to terminate a lease after
24-hours’ notice if the crime was committed on or near
the premises (OR).

Figure 9: Eleven States’ Hate Crime Laws Allow for Additional Punishments or
Consequences Beyond Imprisonment, if Convicted of a Hate Crime
WA
VT

OR
ID

0. .

I
I
I
I
I

VA
NC

CT
DE
MD
DC

LA
FL

""'
HI {>
U.S. Territories

American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

~~
~

Note: Collateral consequences and their applicability vary widely across these states. See each state’s statute for more further detail.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

□

Hate crime law does not allow for
collateral consequences if convicted
(35 states, D.C., 2 territories)

hate crime law (4 states,
:J No
3 territories)

SC
AL

Hate crime law that allows

collateral consequences if
■ for
convicted (11 states)

WV
KY

MS
TX

MA
RI

I
I
I
I
~

I
I

Non-Carceral Sentencing
18

create important opportunities for exploring alternative
responses to hate crimes, including responses geared
toward community repair and preventing hate crimes, rather
than only responding after the fact. These provisions could
include participating in anti-bias education, performing
community service, making payments or compensation
to community-based programs or victim support services
agencies, and more. However, because current laws that
assign these non-carceral options only do so in addition to
(rather than in place of) traditional punishments, we do not
refer to them here as “alternative sentences.”

There is a growing concern that hate crime laws’ use
of enhanced penalties, or at least enhanced penalties
alone, is an insufficient and in fact problematic response
to the underlying issues that lead people to commit hate
crimes (see page 30 for more discussion). More broadly,
in a criminal justice system marked by substantial and
systemic racial disparities in who is charged, who is
convicted, and who receives harsher sentences,26 the
use of enhanced penalties (if not any use of the criminal
system in general) raises a cautionary flag for its potential
to create or perpetuate further racial disparities. As
efforts continue to reform or reshape the criminal justice
system toward rehabilitative rather than punitive goals, it
is important to consider how hate crime laws might, or
might not, fit into those efforts.

Unfortunately, these options are relatively uncommon.
Figure 10 shows that, overall, only 12 states have hate
crime statutes that explicitly include any such provision for
those convicted of hate crimes. Importantly, non-prison
sentencing options may be available in other states or
circumstances, but only in these 12 states are such options
explicitly offered by the hate crime statute itself.

A minority of states’ hate crime laws explicitly allow
courts to recommend or require those convicted of a
hate crime to complete community service or anti-bias
education in addition to their sentence. These provisions

Of these 12 states, one state allows for community
service only (CO), four states allow for anti-bias education

Figure 10: Few State Hate Crime Laws Allow for Community Service or Anti-Bias Education
if Convicted of a Hate Crime, Though Only in Addition to Traditional Punishments
WA

I '

' 7

OR
I

I
I

UT
I
I

1
\

PA
IL
MO

.""
HI

CT
NJ

•1

■

Hate crime law allows for both
community service and anti-bias
education as part of sentencing
(7 states)

■

Hate crime law allows for either
community service or anti-bias
education as part of sentencing
(see note) (5 states)

□

Hate crime law does not allow for
community service or anti-bias
education as part of sentencing
(34 states, D.C., 2 territories)

MA
RI

MS
AK

MN
SD

DE
MD
DC

SC
GA

No hate crime law (4 states,
3 territories)

LA
FL

Hate crime law allows, in some
limited circumstances, for a
mediation process or diversion
program (3 states)

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: CO offers community service only, while LA, MA, MD, and NJ offer anti-bias education only. Additional states beyond those shown on this map may engage in non-carceral sentencing
programs or efforts for hate crimes, but this map focuses on those efforts that are explicitly part of the state’s hate crime statutes.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

programs (LA, MA, MD, NJ), and seven states allow for both
(Figure 10). Again, these are offered only in addition to
traditional forms of punishment, and often these provisions
may only be permitted under certain circumstances and/or
are optional and at the discretion of the sentencing court.
Figure 10 also shows that in three states—Colorado,
Connecticut, and Wisconsin—there are some limited
options available for mediation processes or diversionary
programs that demonstrate potential alternatives to
incarceration for those convicted of a hate crime. These
are still only in addition to whatever carceral, financial, or
other punishments or sentences the court may impose,
and they are only available in limited circumstances, but
they illustrate how some states are beginning to formally
engage with different responses to hate crimes.

• Colorado’s

hate crime law allows the option of a
“restorative justice or other suitable alternative
dispute resolution program,” though only for firsttime offenders.27 However, even this option is “in
addition to and not in lieu of any other sentence
received by the offender.”28 For more on restorative
justice, see the spotlight on page 37.

• Connecticut’s

law allows the court to order
participation in a hate crimes diversion program
as a condition of probation, and no person can be
excluded from that program based on their inability
to afford the program.29 This option is not available to
those who have been previously convicted of some
types of crimes or to those who have previously
completed such a program.

• Wisconsin’s

law offers an alternative sentencing
program, but it is only available to juveniles and
again only in addition to other traditional penalties.30
If a juvenile is found to have committed what would
constitute a hate crime if committed by an adult,
the sentencing court can require participation in a
“victim-offender mediation program…or another
means of apologizing to the victim,” as well as
community service and/or anti-bias education.

Importantly, while Illinois, New Jersey, and New York
have some non-carceral sentencing options (Figure 10),
they also have statutes prohibiting leniency in sentencing
or early release for those convicted of hate crimes (Figure
5). This further illustrates how, even in states with programs
like community service or anti-bias education, hate crime
laws still primarily focus on criminal punishment rather
than rehabilitation or healing.

Civil Action
As illustrated in Figure 11 on the next page, 31 states
and D.C. have statutes establishing a right to civil action
for individual victims of bias-motivated crimes, separate
from criminal action. Common components of these
statutes include allowing a person who experiences
a hate crime the right to sue in civil court for damages,
financial restitution, attorney fees, and injunctive relief,
such as a court order of protection. In an additional two
states, rights to civil action for bias-motivated crimes are
only available in instances of institutional vandalism, such
as vandalizing a religious building or community center.
Twelve states and D.C. empower the attorney general
or district attorney to pursue a civil case on behalf of the
victim. This may be beneficial as it allows someone other
than the victim or survivor to pursue action in response
to the hate crime, potentially relieving or reducing the
potential toll on a survivor from enduring a lawsuit while
still recovering from the initial crime. However, in some
cases the state may pursue criminal charges even against
the survivor’s wishes.
Note that these civil action statutes can be
independent of the hate crime law itself. This means
that, even a state without a hate crime law (creating a
criminal offense) could still allow for individuals to bring
a civil action. In Arkansas, for example, even prior to the
state’s recently passed hate-crimes-adjacent criminal law
(see discussion on page 11), the state already allowed for
individuals to bring a civil action, if the offense is based
on racial, religious, or ethnic animosity.31

Figure 11: Majority of States Allow for Civil Action in Response to Hate Crimes, Separate from Criminal Action

WA
NH
MT

MN
ID

PA
IL

VA
NC

TN
AR

CT
NJ

WV
KY

DE
MD
DC

SC
MS

MA
RI

■

Right to civil action exists for
individuals who experience hate
crimes (31 states, D.C.)

■
□

Right to civil action exists only for
institutional vandalism (2 states)

State attorney general or district
attorney can pursue civil action on
behalf of the victim (12 states, D.C.)

No right to civil action (17 states,
5 territories)

LA
FL

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

~
Note: A state need not have a hate crime statute (creating a criminal offense) to have a civil action statute (creating a civil offense).
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

•

Civil Actions as Alternatives to Criminal Prosecution
In May 2017, Taylor Dumpson became the first Black woman to serve as American University’s student body
president. As reported by The New York Times, she quickly became the target of racist attacks both on campus
and online: bananas hanging from nooses were found throughout campus, and the white supremacist website
The Daily Stormer posted her picture and personal information, directing the website’s followers to harass Taylor—
which they did, relentlessly.
Part of Taylor’s response to this horrific and racist experience was to file a civil lawsuit against the website’s publisher
and several of the harassers. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit legal organization
combatting racial discrimination, filed the lawsuit and in December 2018 won a settlement that involved one of
the harassers agreeing to apologize to Taylor, to undergo counseling, as well as to complete anti-hate training, 200
hours of community service, and educational classes on issues of race and gender. If the former harasser violated the
settlement, he was subject to financial penalties, rather than incarceration. Taylor called the settlement “rooted in the
principles of restorative justice,” and she reported that “the settlement gave her a sense of closure, and that she was
proud that important educational and advocacy work would result from it.” For more on restorative justice, see the
spotlight on page 37.

Violence Against People with Disabilitiesw

•

Roughly 61 million U.S. adults—more than one in four adults—have some type of disability.x In general, people
with disabilities are disproportionately vulnerable to violence and mistreatment, due to many factors including
stigma, discrimination, and the numerous economic, social, and health disparities faced by disabled people.y This is
especially true for disabled people of color.

more
likely
to experience a
violent crime

89%

Increase in disability
hate crimes

1 6
in

of all hate crimes are
based on disability

People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to experience violent crimes
than people without disabilities, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.z

Reported hate crimes based on disability have increased 89% from 2013 to
2019, according to FBI data (Figure A).

Roughly one in six (16%) of all hate crimes are based on disability, according to the
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), an annual and nationally representative
federal survey on people’s experiences of crime over the past year (Figure D).

Even these statistics likely underrepresent the rate of hate crimes and violence against people with disabilities. The
NCVS, for example, does not include individuals living in institutional settings like jails, prisons, or hospitalsaa—places
with higher rates of disabled people and where disabled people are especially vulnerable.bb
Despite high rates of hate crimes, people with disabilities may be less likely to report these experiences.
In general, the majority of all hate crimes are not reported to law enforcement, for a variety of reasons including the
belief that police would not help or that the experience “was not important enough” to report (see further discussion
on pages 27-28).cc In addition, disabled people who experience hate crimes may be reluctant to report for concern
they will not be believed or taken seriously, that their experience will be miscategorized as abuse, and further that
they may experience retribution—particularly if the crime was committed by a caretaker, healthcare provider, or
another person providing assistance.dd
Disabled people, and especially Black disabled people, are also disproportionately policed,ee which may further
decrease the likelihood of reporting hate crimes. As many as 33-50% of police use-of-force incidents—including
police shootings—involve people with disabilities.ff To the extent that hate crime laws invest resources in law
enforcement training, it is imperative that such training include education about people with disabilities and their
unique experiences of vulnerability to violence, as well as explicit analysis of implicit bias, disparities in police
interactions with communities of color, disabled communities, LGBTQ communities, and more.
Members of the disability community have diverse preferences and beliefs about language to describe community members. Some prefer “people-first” language (i.e., people with disabilities),
while others prefer “identity-first” language (i.e., disabled people). This report uses both interchangeably to respect this diversity of thought.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. N.d. Disability Impacts All of Us.
y
Katie Jajtner, et al. 2020. “Rising Income Inequality Through a Disability Lens: Trends in the United States 1981–2018.” Social Indicators Research 151:81–114. See also American Psychological
Association’s (2010) “Disability & Socioeconomic Status.”
z
Erika Harrell. 2017. “Crime Against Persons with Disabilities, 2009-2015 – Statistical Tables.” Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime Against People with Disabilities Series. NCJ 250632.
aa
Bureau of Justice Statistics. n.d. “Data Collection: National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS): Methodology.”
bb
Rebecca Vallas. July 2016. Disabled Behind Bars: The Mass Incarceration of People With Disabilities in America’s Jails and Prisons. Center for American Progress.
cc
Lynn Langton and Madeline Masucci. 2017. Hate Crime Victimization, 2004-2015. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hate Crime Series. NCJ 250653.
ee
Debra McKinney. 2018. “The Invisible Hate Crime.” Intelligence Report 165 (Summer). Southern Poverty Law Center.
ee
Vilissa Thompson. 2021. “Understanding the Policing of Black, Disabled Bodies.” Center for American Progress, February 10.
ff
David Perry and Lawrence Carter-Long. March 2016. The Ruderman White Paper on Media Coverage of Law Enforcement Use of Force and Disability: A Media Study (2013-2015) and Overview. The
Ruderman Family Foundation.
w
x

Victim Protections & Support
22

Other forms of statutory-provided protection for
survivors of hate crimes include:

While 46 states, D.C., and two territories have hate
crime laws, only nine states offer some sort of statutory
protections or support for survivors of these crimes, as
shown in Figure 12. These provisions focus on the survivor
and can help those who experience hate crimes to recover
and to avoid further potential harm.

• Prohibiting insurance providers from cancelling or

refusing to renew a policy that was used following a
hate crime, say for medical coverage or car insurance
(IL, WA).

• Prohibiting

an employer from retaliating should
an employee need to take time off for a criminal
proceeding related to a hate crime (MN).

Typically, these statutes include a standard process
for obtaining an order of protection (such as a restraining
order) in cases where a hate crime may have occurred,
including before an individual is found guilty. For example,
in California, an order of protection against the perpetrator
is a condition of the perpetrator’s probation, medical
release, and parole. States may also create a unique crime
for violating such an order, as in New Hampshire.

• Protecting

an individual’s right to collect
unemployment if they quit their job due to a hate
crime or related intimidation (OR).

• Preventing

law enforcement from detaining a
survivor or witness of a potential hate crime for
an actual or suspected immigration violation
or handing them over to federal immigration
authorities (CA).

Two states have statutes that go beyond protection
to support, by requiring that victims be directed to
community support services and have additional support
in ensuring they are safe and that their needs are met.

• Outlining a survivor’s right to a fast trial and to be
informed of developments in the case (MN, VT).

Figure 12: Only Nine States’ Hate Crime Laws Include Protections or Support for Survivors of Hate Crimes

WA
NH
MT

MN
ID

PA
IL

TN
AR

SC
AL

CT
NJ

MS
AK

MA
RI

DE
MD
DC

■
□

Hate crime law with no victim
protection statutes (37 states,
D.C., 2 territories)

hate crime law (4 states,
=i No
3 territories)

Hate crime law with victim
protection statutes (9 states)

Victim support statutes (2 states)

FL
HI

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: In the LGBTQ context, bans on so-called “gay panic” or “transgender panic” defenses may also be considered a form of victim protection. These are not shown in this map, but currently, 15 states
and D.C. ban the use of such defenses: CA, CO, CT, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, NJ, NV, NY, OR, RI, VT, VA, and WA. For more, see MAP’s Equality Map tracking these laws.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Data Collection & Reporting

Figure 13 also shows that an additional four states and
D.C. have laws that require the state to collect and analyze
hate crime data, but that do not require law enforcement
agencies to report such data. This means any analysis is
limited to voluntarily submitted data, which may not
reflect the true scope of hate crime in a given state.

Data are critical for understanding the scope of
violence, trends over time, and what measures or
policies are effective—or ineffective—in combatting
this violence. As described by the Department of Justice,
such data collected about hate crime incidents typically
include information about the victims, perpetrators, and
motivations of hate crimes.32 Yet data collection and
reporting remain inconsistent and flawed. As a result,
some states have taken steps intended to improve data
collection and reporting efforts.

While 30 states and D.C. require state-based collection
of hate crime data, the actual reporting of those data by
individual law enforcement entities to the FBI remains
voluntary. State data collection requirements can make it
easier for local law enforcement agencies to report data
to the FBI, but in 2019, only 12% of the roughly 18,000
law enforcement agencies nationwide reported any hate
crimes to the FBI.33 As shown in Figure 13, only one state,
New Mexico, requires local law enforcement agencies to
report hate crime incidents directly to the FBI. However,
the state itself is not required to collect or analyze data
on hate crimes, which may limit state-specific efforts
to understand and respond to unique patterns or
experiences of hate crimes in the state.

Currently, 30 states and D.C. have laws requiring some
degree of state-based data collection or reporting. As
shown in Figure 13, 26 states have laws that require law
enforcement agencies to report data on hate crimes to
a centralized state repository or state agency. That state
repository or agency is then typically required to analyze
that hate crime data and report back to law enforcement,
elected officials, and/or the general public, depending on
the statute. Typically, these states publish an annual and
publicly available report on the extent and patterns of
hate crimes in the state.

Overall, twenty states and five territories do not
require any statewide data collection efforts about hate

Figure 13: Only Half of States Require Law Enforcement Agencies to Collect and Report Hate Crime Data
WA
NH
MT

Law requires state to collect hate

data through mandatory
■ crime
reporting from law enforcement

OR
ID

PA
IL

TN
AR

SC
AL

CT
NJ

MS
AK

IN*

agencies (26 states)

MA
RI

Law requires state to collect hate

data but only through voluntary
■ crime
reporting from law enforcement
agencies (4 states, D.C.)

DE
MD
DC

No law requiring state to

hate crime data
□ collect
(20 states, 5 territories)

LA
FL

State does not collect hate
crime data, but does require law
enforcement agencies to report
hate crime data to FBI (1 state)

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: Indiana does not have a true hate crime law, but it does require data collection on bias-motivated crimes. Data collection statutes also typically enumerate classes, and these can be more or
less inclusive than the hate crime statute itself. This is not shown in this map.
Source: MAP updated and adapted from Arab American Institute Foundation’s (2018) Rating the Response: Hate Crime Legislation, Reporting, and Data Collection in the United States. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Law Enforcement Training

crimes committed in their states. These states may still
have statewide agencies that collect and analyze data
about hate crimes (e.g., Montana), but they are not
statutorily required to do so. Similarly, individual law
enforcement agencies within these states may still choose
to collect data and/or report hate crimes to the FBI, but
again, extraordinarily few choose to do so.

Some states have statutes requiring law enforcement
to be trained on the topic of hate crimes. Common
components of these trainings include identifying,
responding to, and accurately collecting data on and
reporting hate crimes. Because hate crime laws, in their
current form, rely on law enforcement for data collection
and connecting victims to needed resources, consistent
training requirements are important for the overall
effectiveness of hate crime laws.

Importantly, data collection statutes can be
distinct from hate crime laws themselves. This means
that a state can have a law requiring data collection
about hate crimes, even if the state does not have
a hate crimes law, as in Indiana. It also means that
data collection requirements can enumerate different
classes—they can be more or less inclusive, with
regards to protected classes—than the overall hate
crime law in a state. For example, in Kentucky, the
state’s hate crime law enumerates sexual orientation,
but its data collection statute does not. Conversely,
in Michigan, the state’s hate crime law does not
enumerate sexual orientation, but the state’s data
collection law does.

Overall, 18 states have statutes requiring hate crime
training for law enforcement, as shown in Figure 14. In
states without such laws, law enforcement may still
receive such training, but it is not statutorily required that
they do so. One additional state, Texas, only requires that
prosecuting attorneys receive training related to hate
crimes; police officers are not subject to this requirement.
While state definitions of “law enforcement” vary, all
other states that require hate crime training for law
enforcement specifically include police officers. Texas is
unique in its omission.

Figure 14: Roughly One-Third of States Require Hate Crimes Training for Law Enforcement

WA
NH
MT

Hate crime law requires hate

MN
ID

PA
IL

OH
VA

TN
AR

SC
AL

CT
NJ

MS
AK

MA
RI

DE
MD
DC

training for law enforcement
■ crime
(see note) (18 states)
Hate crime law requires hate crime

for law enforcement, but
■ training
does not apply to police (1 state)

Hate crime law does not require hate

training for law enforcement
□ crime
(27 states, D.C., 2 territories)
No hate crime law (4 states,
3 territories)

LA
FL

Training statute is less inclusive than
the hate crime statute (2 states)

U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands

Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: State definitions of “law enforcement” vary, and so which specific parties (e.g., police, judges, prosecuting attorneys) are and are not required to receive training on hate crimes will also vary.
Texas is the only state that specifically excludes police officers from its required training on hate crimes.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

•

Law Enforcement Training and Community Accountability
While hate violence is a societal problem that requires many structural, cultural, and community interventions,
currently when hate violence happens it is typically law enforcement that is called upon to respond and investigate.
As such, it is important that law enforcement is adequately trained to recognize hate violence and to respond in
appropriate ways. Despite this, just 18 states require hate crime training for law enforcement, with one additional
state requiring training for prosecuting attorneys but not for police (Figure 14). Common components of these
trainings include how to accurately identify, respond to, collect data on, and report hate crimes.
There are many organizations and advocates
across the country that help train law
enforcement on hate, bias, and violence
prevention. A national leader in this space is the
Matthew Shepard Foundation (MSF). In
partnership with the James Byrd Jr. Center to
Stop Hate, since 2017 they have provided
training to over 1,420 law enforcement officials
in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont.gg
In their own words, these trainings provide
Photo: Judy and Dennis Shepard, community members, and law enforcement officers at a 2017 hate crime training
“officers and prosecutors the skills and tools
panel in Orlando, Florida. Photo courtesy of MSF.
required to improve relations with marginalized
communities, while enhancing their understanding of the need for effective and prompt hate crime enforcement.”
Key learning outcomes include being able to recognize and identify indicators of a bias crime; demonstrating skilled,
sensitive, and respectful engagement with victims; collecting necessary information for substantiating bias motivation;
and accurately reporting data, among other goals.
In addition to these core components, MSF and James Byrd Jr. Center trainings also often include a more narrative,
human-driven approach, centering the stories and experiences of the people and their families who have experienced
hate crimes. This, the Foundation reports, improves law enforcement understanding through specific cases, while also
cultivating a broader emotional, human understanding of the experiences of victims and their families.
Especially amidst the growing national understanding of disproportionate policing of communities of color and the
serious risk of death for people of color in interactions with police, reasonable questions arise about investing additional
resources into law enforcement. Some organizations, however, see this as an opportunity to respond both to hate
violence and to the broader patterns of injustice in the criminal justice system at the same time. Organizations like the
Matthew Shepard Foundation describe improving law enforcement’s treatment of and accountability to vulnerable
communities as a central goal of their work and a core outcome of their trainings, as noted above. Similarly, national
organizations like the Legal Defense Fund have called for the Department of Justice to stop awarding federal funds—
including funds used for training—to law enforcement agencies until the Department can ensure these agencies
are not racially discriminating.hh Both advocates and policymakers are also calling for stronger efforts to identify and
remove white supremacists from within the ranks of law enforcement.ii
To learn more, visit the Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.

gg
hh
ii

Matthew Shepard Foundation. N.d. “Creating Safer Communities: Hate Crimes Prevention Training.” Accessed March 2021.
Legal Defense Fund (LDF). 2021. “LDF Calls on AG to Freeze DOJ Funding to Law Enforcement Departments with Discriminatory Practices.” LDF, April 20.
Amanda Rogers. 2021. “Dismantling White Supremacist Infiltration of the Military and Law Enforcement.” The Century Foundation, January 25.

Training requirements may be distinct statutes from hate
crime laws, and therefore can be more or less inclusive in terms
of enumerated classes (or the specific types of hate crimes that
law enforcement is required to be trained on). For example, in
Kentucky, the hate crime law enumerates sexual orientation
as a protected class, but the training requirement statute
does not. In other words, it is a criminal offense to commit a
hate crime based on sexual orientation, but Kentucky law
enforcement training on hate crimes is not required to discuss
or address hate crimes based on sexual orientation.
As shown here, hate crime laws are complex and
vary both within and across states. The following sections
address some of the major shortcomings of these laws,
why advocates nonetheless continue to push for these
laws, and potential alternative paths to redress violence
against vulnerable communities.

CHALLENGES OF HATE CRIME LAWS
Hate-motivated violence is different from other forms
of violence. The impacts of hate violence radiate outward
from individual incidents and victims to the broader
community, often causing deep and long-lasting harm
and fear for many. As such, it is important that both the
law and broader society respond to this unique form of
violence and its uniquely broad harms.
Advocates of hate crime laws cite many goals of these
laws, including the central importance of legally and
socially responding to individual incidents of hate violence,
holding offenders accountable, and using sentencing
enhancements, or harsher punishments, to deter further
violence.34 Other commonly stated goals include collecting
accurate data about hate violence to better inform policy
and responses to hate crimes; supporting communities
affected by hate violence; and seeking to reduce hate and
bias in our society more broadly. Advocates also recognize
that no criminal statute or singular law is going to solve the
scourge of hate violence in our society and that hate crime
statutes are one part of broader efforts to end violence,
increase understanding, and ensure safety for all.
Over the roughly half-century since the first modern
hate crime laws were enacted, it is increasingly evident
that hate crime statutes—as well as the ways law
enforcement and the criminal justice system more broadly
respond to hate violence—can be improved, particularly
with respect to engaging a more holistic, responsive,
and restorative approach to hate violence and its unique
harms. Key challenges currently include:

• Flaws in hate crime data collection and reporting
are widespread, and the current system relies only on
the voluntary participation of law enforcement. This
ultimately means that extremely few hate crimes are
actually reported, and many victims of hate crimes
are left without needed support. As described earlier
in this report, it also means that the true incidence of
hate violence in the United States as a whole and in
various communities remains unknown.

• More broadly, hate crime laws’ harsher punishments

have not been shown to deter hate violence and
furthermore cannot address the root causes of hate
violence. In their current form, hate crime laws focus
on punishing individual offenders without actually
challenging their underlying prejudicial beliefs—let
alone the prejudice in broader society—all while
doing little to repair the actual harm done to victim(s)
and the broader community.35

• Widespread bias in the criminal justice system results
in significant racial disparities across many outcomes, as
well as clear disparities for low-income people, LGBTQ
people, and other vulnerable communities—often the
very communities that are targeted for hate violence.
This bias is not unique to hate crime laws, but neither
are hate crime laws immune from the broader injustices
of the criminal justice system. Evidence shows that,
for example, even though the majority of hate crimes
are committed by white people, many states’ law
enforcement records disproportionately identify Black
people as hate crime offenders. Additionally, given
the many biases in the criminal system, communities
of color, LGBTQ people, and others are often reluctant
to report their experiences to the police out of fear of
dismissal or further discrimination, leading to further
inequalities in who receives support following hate
violence and the ways that the criminal justice system
responds to hate violence.

While these challenges are substantial, they need not
mean that hate crime laws should be abandoned wholesale.
Ultimately, no law is perfect, and no law alone can change
hearts and minds—let alone repair the harm of centuries
of racism and other forms of prejudice or hatred. However,
laws do have the power to meaningfully shape societal
norms and to direct substantial resources to communities in
need. These challenges call attention to the possibility and
importance of refocusing these laws and resources on other
stated goals, such as investing in victim and community
support services, rigorous data collection and analysis,
and efforts to prevent violence and hate at their roots. The
next section (Recommendations) identifies potential paths
forward for hate crime laws to invest in creating a safer and
more resilient country for all, while also reducing the reliance
on the criminal justice system and its myriad harms.

Flaws in Data Collection and Reporting
Accurate data about hate crimes can help
communities, policymakers, and advocates to craft more
effective responses. Yet, data collection about hate crimes
remains a challenge. The primary data source about hate
crimes in the United States is via the FBI’s Uniform Crime
Reporting Program, which relies on voluntary participation
by law enforcement agencies (see also pages 2-4). This
program has at least two key flaws, described below. As
a result, hate crimes are significantly under-reported,
giving an incomplete picture of the scope of violence.
Incomplete data can also paint incorrect pictures of
contemporary violence and obscure the actual patterns
unfolding, including with respect to the rates that different
communities are targeted,jj the type of crime,kk what policy
interventions are or are not effective, and more.

In the same survey, nearly a quarter (23%) of people
who experienced a hate crime and did not report it to
the police said they did so because they believed the
police would not, or could not, do anything to help, or
reporting to the police would even create further harm
to the victim.38 This belief is supported by research
showing that police do not respond to violent hate
crimes in the same way they respond to violent nonhate crimes: according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
violent non-hate crimes reported to the police “were
nearly three times more likely to result in an arrest than
violent hate crimes.” Ultimately, only one in every 25 (4%)
hate crimes actually results in an arrest.39
Additionally, given the legitimate mistrust and
fear that many communities—particularly Black and
indigenous communities, as well as transgender people—
have toward engaging with police, this may mean that
crimes against people of color and gender minorities are
even less likely to be reported to police. For example, a
2017 nationally representative survey by NPR, the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan
School of Public Health showed that 31% of Black adults
and 22% of Native American adults have avoided calling
the police, even when in need, due to concern that they
would be racially discriminated against.40 Only 2% of white
adults reported this same behavior. The same survey
also showed that 30% of LGBTQ people of color (and

According to the

Victimization Survey (NCVS), over half of all
annual hate crimes are not reported to police.

First, many people who experience hate violence
do not report their experiences to law enforcement, so
these incidents are not included in the FBI’s UCR. Reasons
for not reporting may include seeking alternative means
of resolution; fear of police or expectation that police
would not help; that law enforcement officials themselves
may have been the offenders; and more.
According to the most recently available data from
the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), over
half of annual hate crime victimizations are not reported
to police.36 When asked the most important reason why
they did not report their experience to the police, 41% of
people said they handled the issue another way, “such as
privately or through a non-law enforcement official (e.g.,
apartment manager or school official).” 37

National Crime

Nearly a quarter (23%) of people who experienced

a hate crime and did not report it to the police

said they did so because they believed the police
would not or could not do anything to help, or
would even create further harm to the victim.

For example, in Figure 4 on page 4, the FBI reported that hate crimes based on gender
comprise less than 2% of all hate crimes, but the NCVS reports that 27% of all hate crimes are
based on gender. These two sources offer very different pictures of the scope and magnitude
of gender-based hate crimes, and each picture suggests distinct paths forward for community
or government response.
kk
For example, from 2004 to 2015, the FBI reported that 60% of hate crimes were violent
crime, but the NCVS found that 89% of hate crimes were violent crime. This difference also
illustrates potentially different conclusions about severity, what kind of victim supports or
protections might be needed, and other potential policy responses or needs. See Bureau of
Justice Statistics, Hate Crime Series, Report NCJ 250653, page 8.

15% of all LGBTQ people) reported they had not called
the police even when in need, out of fear they would be
discriminated against because of their LGBTQ identity.41
Second, even if a hate crime is reported to the
police, local law enforcement agencies may not
consistently or reliably collect or report those data
to the FBI. There are multiple steps between a person
experiencing a hate crime and that crime eventually
being reported to the FBI. Each of these steps presents
unique challenges to—and opportunities for bias in—
data collection and reporting. For example, once a
person experiences a hate crime and reports that to law
enforcement, law enforcement must properly identify
and respond to the crime as such. This includes how
the crime is described in initial police reports, such as
categorizing the spray-painting of a swastika on a Jewish
synagogue as a hate crime, rather than (only) graffiti or
vandalism. However, as noted in Figure 14, only 18 states
require law enforcement training on how to properly
identify and investigate hate crimes.
As a result, there are likely many bias-motivated
crimes across the country that, even though they are
reported to the police, they are never properly recognized
or addressed as hate crimes by law enforcement—and

therefore are also not reported to or reflected in FBI
statistics. As illustrated by Figure 3 on page 5, there is
such significant drop-off in each step of the current FBI
reporting process that only an estimated 7% of hate
crime experiences that are reported to police in a
given year are ever reported to the FBI.42
Federal law does not require state and local law
enforcement agencies to participate in federal data
collection efforts about hate crimes. Reporting to the
FBI is a voluntary process. As a result, extraordinarily few
agencies around the country report data on hate crimes
to the FBI. There are roughly 18,000 federal, state, county,
and local law enforcement agencies in the United States,43
and in 2019, only 15,588 participated in the FBI’s UCR Hate
Crimes Statistics.44 However, “participating” in the UCR
Program is not the same as actually reporting meaningful
data on hate crimes. In fact, only 2,172 agencies reported
any hate crime incidents in 2019, nationwide.45 This
means that, as shown in Figure 15, only 12% of all law
enforcement agencies in the country (or 14% of
“participating” agencies) actually reported any hate
crime incidents in 2019. What’s more, the number of
agencies reporting zero hate crimes has grown from 73%
in 199146 to 86% in 2019,47 despite the clear rise in hate
violence in recent years.

Figure 15: Only a Small Fraction of Law Enforcement Agencies Report Hate Crimes to the FBI
Number of Law
Enforcement
Agencies

18,000

■

Total

■

16,039

■

15,588

Participating
in FBI’s UCR

Reporting
Hate Crimes
to FBI’s UCR

■

14,997

15,254

■

16,149

1,666

1,742

1,776

2,040

2,026

2,172

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

■

15,494

1,826

2013

15,016

Source: FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Hate Crimes, 2013-2019. Table 12. www.ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime.

Abusing Original Intent of Hate Crime Law

Black Lives Matter movement against police and criminal
justice practices that result in the disproportionately
high rates of Black people imprisoned, harassed, and
killed by police officers. This is made abundantly clear by
the fact that these laws’ proponents often refer to them
as “Blue Lives Matter” laws or amendments, as in the
case of Louisiana’s HB 953, initially titled the “Blue Lives
Matter Act” and the first bill of this type to be passed.

A recent development in state hate crime statutes is
the expansion of what constitutes a hate crime to include
violence against law enforcement. These so-called “Blue
Lives” laws or amendments abuse the original intent
of hate crime laws to enumerate law enforcement—a
profession, not a characteristic subject to historical
discrimination and violence—as a protected class.

These states are unique in enumerating law
enforcement—a profession—as a protected class in the
hate crime statute, in contrast to the historical origin and
use of these laws based on characteristics of groups and
individuals that make them vulnerable to discrimination,
hate-motivated violence, and other forms of inequality.

Notably, all 50 states already have criminal statutes
that specifically address and punish violence against a
law enforcement officer, including enhanced penalties
for crimes where the victim is a law enforcement officer or
first responder.48 Yet in recent years, six state legislatures
have passed laws enumerating law enforcement officers
as a protected class in hate crime statutes, as shown
in Figure 16. In doing so, these states have not only
unnecessarily created punishments that already existed
in law, but they also have done so as a political response
to growing calls to reduce violence committed by police
and the broader criminal justice system. These new state
laws were enacted at least in part as a response to the

Louisiana was the first to add police officers as a
protected class to its hate crime statute in 2016. Kentucky,
Mississippi, and Texas passed legislation that added
police officers in 2017, and Utah added police officers to
its law in 2019. In early 2020, Georgia was one of just four
states at the time without any hate crime law whatsoever.
Following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old

Figure 16: Six States Enumerate Law Enforcement as a Protected Class in Hate Crime Laws
Through So-Called “Blue Lives Matter” Amendments
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Hate-crime-related law does not
enumerate but could apply to law
enforcement (see note) (2 states)

law enforcement
□ enumerate
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U.S. Territories
American Samoa

Commonwealth of the
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Guam

Puerto Rico

U.S. Virgin Islands

Note: Arkansas and Indiana do not have true hate crime laws, but they do have laws related to bias-motivated crimes. These related statutes are written with such broad and generic language that they could
apply to crimes committed against law enforcement. Note also that all 50 states already criminalize violence toward law enforcement, further highlighting the politicized nature of the laws shown on this map.
Source: MAP original analysis. Data as of 6/1/2021.

Black man who was murdered while out for a run by three
white men (including a former police officer), Georgia
passed a hate crime law.49 Shortly after, however, the
state passed a separate law adding law enforcement as a
protected class to the new hate crime statute.

the broader societal context that creates, enables, and
perpetuates hate and bias in the first place. This again
points to the need for widespread anti-bias education and
addressing the racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia,
and more that motivates hate violence.

Failing to Address the Root Causes of
Hate Violence

Turning our collective attention to the social
contexts that enable hate also allows us to address
the actual root causes of why certain communities are
especially vulnerable to hate violence. For example,
racism leads to racial discrimination, including in the
workplace, in housing, in health care, and more. Such
discrimination then leads people of color to experience
disproportionate rates of poverty or economic
instability, housing insecurity, or unequal access to
healthcare. This in turn creates disproportionate need
and vulnerability, such as being forced to stay in a
dangerous living situation or to seek income through
survival economies because few other alternatives
are available. This chain of events leaves people more
vulnerable to violence or exploitation.

More broadly, criticisms of hate crime laws often
point to the discrepancy between the stated goals of hate
crime laws—such as deterring or preventing hate crimes
through harsher sentencing—and the actual outcomes
of these laws. For example, there is little to no evidence
that harsher sentencing reduces crime—meaning
there is little to no evidence supporting the central
tool of these policies. Decades of research on the death
penalty show no proof that even the harshest sentencing
enhancement reduces murder rates.50 Similarly, there
is no evidence that sentencing enhancements in hate
crime laws reduce or deter hate-motivated crimes. These
laws do create a criminal (and sometimes civil) response
to hate crimes when they do happen—allowing for the
potential to hold individual offenders accountable—but
there remains little evidence that harsher punishments
actually prevent hate crimes from occurring.
Furthermore, hate crime laws—at least in their
current form—are insufficient for redressing the ongoing
and persistent hate violence in this country because
these laws only respond to that violence after it has
occurred, rather than working to prevent such violence.
Community advocates and anti-violence coalitions
often point to the need for, among other interventions,
widespread education efforts to reduce the bias that
motivates hate crime.51 But as discussed on pages 18-19,
while 46 states, D.C., and two territories have hate crime
laws, only 11 states have any form of anti-bias education
component to their hate crime laws (Figure 10)—and
those are only for people convicted of committing a hate
crime and only as optional programming.
Similarly, critics argue these laws are flawed because
they focus on acts of violence at the individual or incident
level, rather than at a broader societal level.52 This
creates at least two related problems. First, this creates a
particular focus on the perpetrator, nearly to the exclusion
of the victim. While 46 states, D.C., and two territories have
hate crime laws, only nine states have any form of victim
protection or support services (Figure 12). Second, this
focus on hate crimes as isolated, individual events ignores

Taken together, these critiques illustrate that while
hate crime laws primarily respond to violence, it is also
imperative to take action to prevent both violence
itself and the economic and social conditions that
leave some communities at higher risk of experiencing
violence in the first place.

Hate or bias-related violence is

portrayed as individualized, ignorant, and aberrant—a
criminal departure by individuals and extremist
groups from the norms of society, necessitating
intensified policing to produce safety. The fact is many
of the individuals who engage in such violence are

encouraged to do so by mainstream society through
promotion of laws, practices, generally accepted

prejudices, and religious views. …For instance,
violence against LGBT people generally increases in

the midst of highly visible, homophobic, right-wing
political attacks. …Attacks against South Asian and
Middle Eastern people surged in the aftermath of the

anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric following 9/11.”
-Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, & Kay Whitlock, in Queer (In)Justice: The
Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, 2016

Bias in the Criminal Justice System
The U.S. criminal justice system is built on,
replicates, and reflects biases in our broader country.
In particular, Black, LGBTQ, and other minority groups
have historically, because of their identities, been
targets of both the criminal justice system and hate
violence. American society has not remedied the
consequences of that historical criminalization, nor its
remaining and continuing manifestations. As a result,
many communities—including both people of color
and LGBTQ people—are frequently over-policed and
underserved at the same time. Especially when relying
on the criminal system to address complex societal
problems like hate violence, it is necessary to examine
the bias inherent in the criminal justice system and
the ways this bias may contribute to negative impacts

on communities that are often already the targets of
discrimination, bias, and hate.
Because the criminal justice system is itself biased,
any use of that system has the potential to recreate
or reflect those structural biases. For example, even
though evidence shows that white people report higher
rates of illicit drug use than Black or Hispanic people,53
people of color are significantly more likely to be
arrested and incarcerated for drug-related offenses.54
In 2019, Black and Latino people comprised 32% of the
national population55 but 46% of people in state prison
and 74% of people in federal prison for drug offenses.56
As recent years have increasingly called attention to, this
pattern is true across many areas of the criminal system,
with people of color being more likely to be arrested
and convicted for many types of crimes and to receive

Figure 17: People of Color Are More Likely To Experience Hate Violence, Yet LawEnforcement-Recorded Hate Crimes Disproportionately List Black Perpetrators
In Minnesota, 7% of the population is Black, but more than 25% of law-enforcement-reported
hate crimes listed Black offenders—a rate 3.6x the size of the state population.

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State law-enforcement-recorded hate
crimes disproportionately list Black
offenders relative to the size of the
state’s Black population (13 states)

■

State law-enforcement-recorded hate
crimes list Black offenders at a similar
or smaller size relative to the state’s
Black population (4 states)

□

State does not report racial
demographics of alleged hate crime
offenders or does not report any hate
crime data (33 states + D.C.) (see note)

Note: Not all states collect data on hate crimes, and of those that do, not all report data on the race of suspected offenders. Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming report racial data but are not included here
due to reporting inconsistencies or small sample size. Note also that state-reported data shown here reflect the reported race of suspected offenders in law enforcement’s incident reports. While
these incident reports may lead to arrests, prosecutions, or convictions, actual data on racial demographics of hate crime arrests, prosecutions, or convictions are extremely rare or limited.
Sources: Annual crime statistics reported by each listed state across years available between 2013 and 2020. Additional details available upon request. State population data from U.S. Census
Bureau, ACS 2019.

longer sentences compared to white peers.57 Research
similarly shows that LGBTQ people, particularly LGBTQ
people of color, are also more likely to be arrested58 and
incarcerated,59 and that low-income communities are
disproportionately harmed by criminal fines, fees, bail,
and other punishments.60
There is evidence that this same type of bias occurs
in the context of hate crime law. As argued by legal
scholars, “hate crime laws can contribute to systemic
violence against those they are intended to protect…
even well-intentioned hate crime laws can morph in
the hands of law enforcement officials into tools used
to reinforce old patterns of injustice.”61

Additionally, given the many biases in the criminal
justice system, people of color, LGBTQ people, and
other vulnerable communities may be reluctant to
report their experiences to the police (as discussed on
pages 27-28). They may also fear retaliation for doing so.
This leads to even less documentation of and responses to
hate violence committed against people of color, LGBTQ
people, and others—further exacerbating the disparities
in enforcement of existing hate crime statutes.

These repeated disparities again show that—despite
the fact that people of color are far more likely to be the
victims of hate violence—the instances of hate violence
that are actually documented by police (and therefore
potentially prosecuted) are disproportionately those
alleged to have been committed by Black people.

Even if hate crimes are reported, discretion on
the part of law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges
and juries in when and whether to apply a hate crime
charge means that these statutes are susceptible
to being inconsistently or inequitably enforced.
For example, a police officer may not believe that an
attacker yelling anti-LGBTQ slurs during an assault
rises to the level of a hate crime, and so he may not
label it as such.67 This is especially likely given that only
18 states currently require training of police officers
(Figure 14) on how to properly recognize and respond
to these unique crimes—not to mention potential bias,
both implicit and explicit, among law enforcement
personnel. With respect to prosecutors, research shows
that, “because hate crime statutes only apply to criminal
acts, prosecutors have full discretion to decide when to
attach hate crime enhancements to indictments,” and
as a result, “many federal and state prosecutors tend
not to utilize hate crime statutes.”68 Similarly, a jury
might return a guilty verdict for a hate crime based on
one bias (e.g., religion), but not for the same crime if
based on another bias they may be less familiar with or
sympathetic toward (e.g., disability or gender).

In another example, the city of Columbia, South
Carolina, passed a local hate crime ordinance in late 2019,
but to date the law’s enforcement has led to the arrests
of primarily Black and homeless people.64 In at least two
cases, the hate crimes in question involved the perpetrator
allegedly using a slur to refer to police officers—in other
words, the bias-motivation was anti-police.65 Similarly,
while South Carolina does not currently have a statewide
hate crime law, the state did pass an antilynching law
in 1951. However, “lynching” was defined without any
reference to race, and as a result, “Fifty years later, though
Blacks comprise only about 30 percent of South Carolina
population, they represented 63 percent of those charged
with lynching.”66 This is especially disturbing given the
history of lynching in the United States, and especially in
the U.S. South, as a primary weapon of white supremacy.

For prosecutors, judges, and juries, this is further
complicated by the high and often confusing burden
of proof required to convict a person of a hate crime.
For example, under federal hate crime law, conviction
requires proving “beyond a reasonable doubt” the
attacker’s motive: “This involves the jury deciding what
motivated the defendant, but short of a confession, it is
hard to lift all doubt as to the defendant’s motivation.”69
Based on these strict requirements, prosecutors may
choose not to pursue a potentially unachievable hate
crime conviction, and judges may similarly be hesitant to
apply the law.70 (See discussion of The Justice for Victims
of Hate Crimes Act on the next page.) Jury members
might also allow the high burden of proof to act as cover
for personal biases that make them not want to convict.
For example, take the case of a person who assaulted a

For example, the majority of all hate crimes are
committed by white people62 and the majority of all hate
crimes are motivated by racial or ethnic bias.63 Additionally,
the growing number of “mass” hate crimes—such as the
mass shootings at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in
2018, or at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019—were committed by
white nationalists. Yet, data show that hate crimes reported
by state law enforcement are disproportionately listed as
having Black perpetrators. Across at least 13 states, lawenforcement-recorded hate crimes listed Black offenders at
a rate roughly 1.6—3.6 times than the size of the state’s Black
population (see Figure 17 on the previous page).

•

Current Legislative Opportunities to Improve Hate Crime Laws
There are many opportunities to improve existing hate crime law, including with respect to the many challenges
addressed in this report. At the federal level, multiple bills are currently being considered that would advance stronger
protections, data collection efforts, victim support services, and more. These illustrate just some of the many ways that
both state and federal policymakers can respond to hate violence without creating new or harsher sentencing.

udilt •
Data

Coordination &
Resources

iii Jb\ ~ tQ

Victim/Community
Support

Alternative
Sentencing

Legal
Protections

Training &
Education

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, as currently written, would create new resources
for the federal government to combat domestic terrorism, with a specific focus on white
supremacist violence. It would also create an interagency task force across different parts
of the federal government, allowing for a more comprehensive, coordinated, and effective
response to domestic terrorism and white supremacy. Importantly, the bill does not
create a new federal crime or charge—which would negatively impact already vulnerable
communitiesjj—but instead relies on existing statutes, expands the resources available
to fight domestic terrorism at a structural level, and creates an explicit priority of fighting
white supremacy. However, federal terrorism statutes have historically been used to
target Black and other activists of color, and so any use of such statutes must be carefully
monitored, evaluated, and prevented from further harming communities of color.
The Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act would clarify what is legally required to
prove a hate crime occurred, therefore providing stronger protections for those affected
by hate crimes. Currently, judicial interpretation of federal law requires that prosecutors
prove that bias was the only cause of a hate crime—a nearly impossible standard, and
not the original intent of federal hate crimes law. This legislation would allow prosecutors
to prove only that bias was a substantial motivating factor.
Passed in late May 2021, the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act will “provide funding for states
to establish hotlines for reporting and addressing hate crimes, establish a private right
of action for victims of hate crimes, support training on hate crime data collection and
reporting for law enforcement officers, and authorize effective rehabilitative services
for those convicted of hate crimes.” mm This approach expands federal hate crime law
with a focus on improved data collection at the state and local level, improved support
for survivors of hate crimes, and—importantly—new options allowing for alternatives
to criminal punishments. The new law also includes the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act,
which provides resources for expedited review of COVID-related hate crimes, guidance
for state and local law enforcement to establish online reporting of hate crimes, and
resources to make these online options available in multiple languages and to invest
in “culturally competent and linguistically appropriate public education campaigns,
and collection of data” regarding hate crimes.nn
ll
mm
nn

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 2021. “Coalition Urges Congress Not to Expand Domestic Terrorism Charges.”
Vanita Gupta. 2017. “Responses to the Increase in Religious Hate Crimes.” Testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Office of Sen. Mazie K. Hirono. 2021. “Hirono and Meng Introduce Bill to Address Surge of Anti-Asian Hate Crimes During Coronavirus Pandemic.”

gay or transgender person for expressing sexual interest
in them. A jury member with bias toward LGBTQ people
may think this violent reaction was understandable
and therefore would prefer not to convict the person of
a hate crime, and the high burden of proof could give
that jury member cover to do so. Conversely, research
shows that—as a result of widespread overpolicing of
communities of color, bias in arrests and prosecutions,
and much more—across many types of alleged crimes,
people of color are disproportionately more likely to
be prosecuted and convicted of different crimes.71 As
a result—and as suggested by available data above
(Figure 17)—hate crimes may be more likely to be
identified and potentially prosecuted as such when
people of color are the alleged perpetrators.
Hate crime laws are not the only example of the
bias in the criminal justice system manifesting in laws
or policies meant to protect vulnerable communities.
Zero-tolerance policies in schools, for example, were
originally proposed to create safer learning environments,
but instead have created harmful and disproportionate
impacts—such as higher rates of suspension, expulsion,
and even arrests—for students of color, students
with disabilities, and lower-income students.72 In fact,
researchers and advocates regularly point to zerotolerance policies as part of the school-to-prison pipeline,
directly contributing to the broader racial and economic
disparities seen throughout the criminal justice system.73
As zero-tolerance approaches have also been used in
school anti-bullying efforts, the same pattern has played
out: a policy originally intended to be protective instead
results in unequal and disproportionate enforcement,
particularly for people of color.74 This illustrates that,
while bias is not unique to hate crime laws, neither are
hate crime laws exempt from the bias inherent in the
U.S. criminal system simply because these laws intend
to protect vulnerable communities.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Given these many challenges, why do hate crime
laws remain relevant? As noted earlier, violence against
vulnerable communities remains a persistent and ongoing
threat today. This continued violence means there is still
need for governmental and societal response. As hate
crime laws have been a primary tool for responding to
this violence in the past, they remain a familiar framework
for many, including legislators, law enforcement, and
prosecutors, to address bias-motivated violence.

Additionally, communities and advocates in some
states without hate crime laws (or without specific
enumerated categories, such as sexual orientation or
gender identity) continue to push for their passage. For
example, advocates in South Carolina—one of the four
states currently without a hate crime law—continue to
work for a statewide hate crime law, particularly in the
wake of racist violence such as the 2015 mass shooting at
the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in
Charleston in which nine Black parishioners were killed.75
Similarly, though progressive movement and national
understandings of the harms of criminal justice system
continue to grow, existing hate crime laws are just that:
existing. As these laws are already “on the books,” they
provide an already-available tool to use or leverage in the
fight against violence and bigotry. Improved enforcement
or expansion of existing laws—particularly whatever
provisions might allow for data collection, training, antibias education, and victim support services—may be
more politically possible than passing entirely new laws,
especially in an exceptionally partisan environment.
Given these considerations, there are multiple paths
forward for improving the efficacy of the desired parts
of hate crime laws, reducing the harmful impacts of the
criminal system, and eventually stopping bias-motivated
violence in the first place. The recommendations
contained here are not mutually exclusive, nor are they
exhaustive; they reflect and only briefly summarize the
recommendations, work, and expertise of numerous
community organizations, survivors, policy and legal
teams, academic researchers, and more. For more detail,
further resources are available at the end of this report.

Reducing Vulnerability and Investing in
Harmed Communities
First and foremost must be reducing the
vulnerability of and investing in communities that
are commonly the subjects of hate violence, such as
people of color, LGBTQ people, people of minority
faiths, and people with disabilities. Investment
in harmed communities can and should include
investing in the social safety net, such as through
raising the minimum wage and expanded affordable
housing programs, mental health services, and
substance use treatment.76 Additionally, state and
federal nondiscrimination protections in employment,
housing, and public places are vital to ensuring equal
access to a safe workplace, stable living situation, and

needed services.77 The Equality Act, for example, would
not only provide such protections for LGBTQ people
across the country, but it would also expand or add
new protections against discrimination for people of
color, women, people of minority faiths, and more.78
These measures will help reduce the broader instability
caused by discrimination, in turn reducing vulnerable
communities’ exposure to potential violence—as well
as their ability to recover from violence.79

Preventing Violence
Another key priority is preventing violence.
At its core, this work aims to not only reduce hate
crimes, but also hate itself. This can range from locallevel efforts such as a town’s City Council or Human
Rights Commissions, interfaith groups, or community
coalitions working to promote an inclusive community
and to rebuke hateful activities or ideologies (such as
extremist groups), to state and federal efforts such
as legislation to ensure schools, workplaces, and
government agencies have the funding and resources
to offer multicultural education, conflict resolution
skills, and more.80 For example, in testimony to the
U.S. Senate, the Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights (LCCHR) called for “the enactment of
comprehensive legislation focusing on inclusive antibias education, hate crime prevention, and bullying,
cyberbullying, and harassment education, policies, and
training initiatives.”81 Community organizations and
anti-violence advocates have also called for federal
working groups or task force specifically dedicated to
addressing and preventing hate violence.82

Improved Law Enforcement Training and
Accountability
Addressing hate crimes requires both efforts to
prevent violence and to respond to violence when it does
occur. In their current format, hate crime laws primarily
rely on law enforcement to respond to hate violence.
To the extent that hate crime laws continue to rely
on law enforcement in the future, this highlights the
need for consistent training requirements across the
country for law enforcement officials—including police
officers, prosecutors, judges, and other members of
law enforcement, broadly defined. As shown in Figure
14, currently only 18 states require such training for law
enforcement, with one additional state requiring training
for law enforcement but specifically exempting police.

Common components of these trainings include
how to accurately identify, respond to, collect data on,
and report hate crimes. However, trainings could—
and should—also include components designed to
address hate and bias at their roots. For example, in
2021, the California Attorney General announced the
formation of a new state Racial Justice Bureau, tasked
with, among other duties, addressing hate crimes and
hate organizations. This explicitly includes working
with community organizations and law enforcement
on hate crime reporting and prevention, including new
requirements for law enforcement training on implicit
and explicit bias in policing.83
Importantly, many communities that are commonly
the targets of hate violence are also disproportionately
impacted and harmed by law enforcement. As a result,
there is significant and reasonable distrust and fear of
police in many vulnerable communities. For example, a
2017 NPR survey showed that 31% of Black adults, 22%
of Native Americans, 17% of Latinos, and 15% of LGBTQ
people reported they had not called the police, even
when in need, out of fear they would be discriminated
against by the police.84 This in turn limits the effectiveness
of hate crime laws in their current form, as such fear
can lead to hate crime experiences not being reported
to police: in fact, nearly a quarter (23%) of people who
experienced a hate crime and did not report it to the
police said they did so because they believed the police
would not or could not do anything to help, or that
reporting to the police would cause even further harm.85
This highlights the urgent need for law enforcement
to engage in dedicated and sustained efforts to
improve their relationships to the communities they
serve, and to take meaningful steps toward being
accountable for—and repairing—past harms. To the
extent that hate crime laws rely on law enforcement
personnel for responding to and collecting data on hate
violence across the country, the effectiveness of these
laws will depend on law enforcement’s relationships
with and treatment of vulnerable communities.

Improved (and Community-Based) Data
Collection
Better data collection, and not (only) through
law enforcement, is also needed. As outlined above,
accurate and comprehensive data collection is vital for
providing a clear picture of the scope and patterns of

hate crimes today. This includes data about the types
and motivations of hate crimes, as well as demographic
data about both the victims and the perpetrators of
hate crimes. Collecting demographic data about those
who commit hate crimes or are prosecuted under hate
crime laws is especially important, as it would show
whether hate crime laws are (or are not) replicating
the racial disparities common throughout the criminal
justice system (e.g., whether hate crime statutes are
more likely to be enforced when the alleged perpetrator
is a person of color). Additionally, data collection efforts
could be expanded to include the study and evaluation
of alternative sentencing, diversionary programs,
restorative justice programs, and other non-carceral
responses to hate violence. All such efforts could
contribute to future policy improvements in the service
of maximizing meaningful support and protections to
those affected by hate violence, while also minimizing
the potential harms of the criminal justice system.
For any such data collection to occur, individuals
who experience hate crimes must choose to report
their experiences. This highlights multiple needs.
First, public education campaigns are needed to raise
awareness of the importance of reporting, the process
for reporting, and the rights of and resources available
to survivors of hate crimes. Second, the process for
reporting hate crimes should be as simple and safe as
possible: programs like community or state hotlines,
where people can report their experiences and be
directed to available resources, can help lower obstacles
to reporting and increase access to needed support.
Third, and as noted above, current hate crime laws
rely on law enforcement for both responding to hate
crimes and collecting data on hate crimes, but law
enforcement has disproportionately harmed many
vulnerable communities. As a result, it is imperative that
law enforcement work to repair its relationships with the
communities they serve, which will also contribute to
increased reporting of hate crime experiences.
Accurate data collection requires more vthan just
individuals reporting their experiences to enforcement.
Law enforcement must also record and label that
experience as a hate crime, and further then report that
hate crime to state and federal agencies. As discussed
above, this highlights the need for more and consistent
training for all law enforcement personnel on how
to recognize, report, and respond to hate crimes. It
also highlights the need for stronger requirements

and incentives for law enforcement to report hate
crimes and related data to both state and federal
agencies. Figure 13 shows that only 26 states require
law enforcement to report hate crime data to the
state, and Figure 15 shows how extraordinarily few law
enforcement agencies actually or meaningfully report
hate crime data to the FBI. As a result, additional statebased requirements and federal incentives are sorely
needed. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
Rights, for example, recommends “passing legislation
mandating that some Justice Department funds should
be made available only to those agencies that are
demonstrating credible participation” in federal data
collection (emphasis added).86
Importantly, however, data collection and reporting
must not be limited to law enforcement agencies only.
Even if data collection and reporting were to become
mandatory for law enforcement agencies, this would
still pose a significant problem given the historical and
ongoing violations of trust and safety between police
and vulnerable communities. This illustrates the clear
need to not only improve data collection on hate
crimes, but also to do so through community-based
efforts, hotlines, and other mechanisms beyond only
law enforcement agencies.

Shifting to Support and Healing
Within the existing framework of hate crime statutes,
advocates and policymakers can shift focus away from
penalty enhancements and toward other measures,
including victim support, community education and
response strategies, and non-carceral approaches to
healing and justice. In light of the endemic racism and
bias in the criminal system, creating harsher punishments
will likely only create further disproportionate impacts
on communities of color.87 Focusing on these nonpenalty-enhancement components of existing hate
crime statutes can reduce the harm of the criminal
justice system and its disproportionate impact on
already vulnerable communities.
For example, the Michigan Alliance Against Hate
Crimes (MIAAHC) is a statewide coalition of over 70
civil rights organizations, community-based groups,
educators, anti-violence advocates, and state actors
including U.S. and district attorneys, the state’s
Department of Civil Rights, and law enforcement
agencies. The coalition was “established to develop a
consistent and coordinated response to hate crimes and

What Is Restorative Justice?

•

For many people, it can be difficult to imagine alternatives to punishment, especially in the context of the U.S. criminal
justice system that is built on a punitive rather than rehabilitative model. However, there are many communities
around the country and across the world that already use or are exploring such alternatives. One of these alternative
practices is called restorative justice, a process that responds to harm through a lens of accountability and repair,
rather than punishment.
As described by the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, key principles of restorative justice include that “the people
most affected by the crime should be able to participate in its resolution.”oo In practice, this typically means that
the victim(s), perpetrator(s), and affected community members voluntarily work together in a structured, dialoguecentered way to identify the harms caused, what appropriate amends or restitution would be, and taking steps to
repair that harm.
For example, in 1994, two white Iowa teenagers (ages 17 and 18) graffitied a Jewish synagogue with swastikas. Rather
than pursuing criminal charges, members of the synagogue held a meeting with the teenagers, facilitated by a local
mediator and prosecutor. As reported by local press,pp the meeting included synagogue members sharing the fear and
anger they felt, as well as Holocaust survivors sharing their personal experiences. The teenagers ultimately shared their
own experiences with persistent bullying and abuse that left them isolated and vulnerable to recruitment by Neo-Nazi
extremists. Together, the synagogue and the teenagers developed a plan to repair harm done to both the synagogue
and the local community, including that the children acknowledge the harm they committed and make restitution to
the synagogue through service work, learning Jewish history, and promising to complete their high school education.
Importantly, these processes are voluntary for those involved, as not all those who experience (or commit) hate crimes
may want to engage in such a process. In fact, it is critical for restorative justice to work that there is full and voluntary
participation by everyone involved.qq Only if all parties consent, then these processes can serve as potential alternatives
to prosecution and punishment. Given the individual circumstances, what constitutes repair varies, but could include
material reparation, such as replacement of damaged goods; emotional repair through an apology; relational repair
through renewal of interpersonal relationships; community reparations through work in the community; learning; and
support that may include social, education, housing, and other forms of direct assistance.
Such practices are used in schools, workplaces, faith communities, and other spaces around the country and indeed
the world,rr and are increasingly used in some aspects of the criminal system itself.ss In the context of hate crime laws,
for example, Wisconsin has an alternative sentencing program, though it is only available to juvenile offenders (see
discussion on Figure 10).
As these approaches are far less common—and indeed their focus on healing is distinct from the criminal justice system’s
focus on punishment—the implementation of such programs must be carefully planned, operated, and evaluated in
partnership with community-based organizations and experts to avoid the criminal system simply co-opting these
programs against the stated goals—in other words, to ensure these programs are truly alternative processes, rather
than additional punishments.
oo
pp
qq
rr
ss

Center for Justice & Reconciliation. N.d. “Restorative Justice.”
Teresa F. Frisbie. 2014. “Restorative justice is expanding in Illinois, but more can still be done.” Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, July 28. Based on Fred Van Liew’s April 22, 2012, Des Moines Register article,
“Growing past hate: ‘Restorative Justice’ helps heal pain from teen’s vandalism” (no longer online).
Mark Austin Walters. 2019. Repairing the harms of hate crime: towards a restorative justice approach? Annual report for 2018 and Resource Material Series, 108. pp. 56-72.
Center for Justice & Reconciliation. N.d. “Restorative Justice Outside the Criminal Justice System.”
Center for Justice & Reconciliation. N.d. “Restorative Justice In the Criminal Justice System.”

bias incidents perpetrated in Michigan,” and gears its
efforts toward community education, connecting victims
to support and resources, cultivating community-based
responses to hate crimes, and data collection.88
By expanding or focusing on other provisions of
hate crime statutes, such as victim support (Figure
12) and non-carceral sentencing (Figure 10), further
resources can be invested in supporting those survivors
and communities directly impacted by hate crimes
and working to prevent violence in the long run. In
particular, non-carceral approaches, such as restorative
or transformative justice,tt can provide an alternative
path toward repairing harm and preventing future
violence without incarceration or punishment.
For all these recommendations, the fact of the
widespread and persistent violence across the country
means that a similarly widespread and persistent
response—i.e., one that is enacted and coordinated by
the federal government—is needed. Federal leadership
will help ensure a coordinated, nationwide response
and dissemination of evidenced-based best practices,
rather than piecemeal state-by-state efforts that may
leave some without equal protection, investment, and
opportunities for healing.

CONCLUSION
Today, there is a clear tension between the ongoing,
real, persistent threat of violence against vulnerable
communities and the laws and legal tools historically used
to respond to this violence—tools that are increasingly
understood to rely on a flawed criminal justice system rife
with racial inequality and harm.
One legal response to bias-motivated violence
against vulnerable communities is to criminalize such
acts through hate crime laws. This report illustrates
the wide-ranging complexity and variation of state
hate crime laws and related legal responses to biasmotivated crime. For example, nearly all states with hate
crime laws specifically address violence motivated by
race, ethnicity, and religion, but states vary widely with
respect to crimes based on sexual orientation, gender
identity, and age. Similarly, roughly half of states require
data collection about hate crimes committed in the
states, and even fewer require training on hate crimes
for law enforcement officers.

In practice, this state patchwork and variation results
in inconsistent protections for vulnerable communities
from state to state and varying levels governmental
efforts to track, respond to, and prevent hate violence.
Hate crime laws also contain numerous shortcomings
and challenges, including but not limited to flawed data
collection, an inherently biased criminal justice system,
abuse of the original intent of hate crime statutes, and
ultimately failing to address the root causes of hatemotivated violence.
Despite these challenges, communities, educators,
advocates, and many more across the country have
been working to develop more comprehensive and
effective responses to the ongoing violence and hatemotivated crime across the country. In particular, these
efforts highlight the need for investing in harmed
communities; preventing violence; improved data
collection; and divesting from the criminal justice
system and punishment-focused provisions that would
only further entrench the criminal system’s racial
disparities and other disproportionate impacts on
already vulnerable communities.
As the United States continues to grapple with
racial justice, the harms of the criminal justice system,
and rising hate violence against many communities,
it is critical that we reexamine our social and policy
responses to hate crime. Further explicit study of the
efficacy, benefits, and potential harms of hate crime
laws is needed so that best practices—including those
beyond the criminal system—can be identified and
implemented consistently across the country. These best
practices should, at a minimum, center and invest in the
communities most impacted by hate violence, work to
both prevent hate violence and respond to it when it
does occur, and to do so without furthering the harm
and disproportionate impacts of the criminal justice
system. How hate crime laws, in both their current and
potential form, fit into the broader work to improve the
safety and security of all communities in the United
States is a critical part of the work ahead.
tt

For more on the distinctions between restorative and transformative justice, see Candace
Smith’s (2013) “Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice: Definitions and Debates” in
Sociology of Law, Crime, and Deviance.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Anti-Defamation League (ADL). 2019. Hate Crime Laws: The ADL Approach.
The Arab American Institute Foundation (AAIF). 2018. Rating the Response: Hate Crime Legislation, Reporting, and Data Collection in the United States. Washington D.C: AAIF.
The Brennan Center for Justice. 2019. Fighting Far-Right Violence and Hate Crimes: Resetting Federal Law Enforcement Priorities.
The Brennan Center for Justice. 2019 (last updated 2020). State Hate Crimes Statutes.
The Center for Justice and Reconciliation. 2021. Restorative Justice Tutorials and Library of Resources. Prison Fellowship International.
FBI. 2015. Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual.
James Byrd Jr. Center to Stop Hate and Not in Our Town. n.d. Community Response to Hate: Stop Hate Action Toolkit and Resources.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. 2017. Responses to the Increase in Religious Hate Crimes. Testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes. n.d. A Guide for Creating and Maintaining Community-Based Collaborations to Address Hate and Bias.
National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE). 2009. Responding to Hate Crimes: A Community Resource Manual.
NYC Against Hate Coalition. n.d. NYC Against Hate Coalition Policy Framework: Investing in a Restorative Community-Based Approach.
Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide.
Stanford Law School and Brennan Center for Justice. 2021. Exploring Alternative Approaches to Hate Crimes.
Stop Hate Project and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. 2018. Community Response Toolkit: When Hate Groups Come to Town.

Exploring
Alternative Approaches
to Hate Crimes

A collaborative report by,

Stanford !
Law and Policy Lab

BRENNAN

CENTER
FOR JUSTICE
II HYU u.w

Jur.e2021

See also the recently released report Exploring Alternative Approaches to Hate Crimes,
by Stanford Law and The Brennan Center (June 2021).

ENDNOTES
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Michael Balsamo. 2020. “Hate crimes in US reach highest level in more than a decade.” AP News, November 16.
Paul Iganski. 2001. “Hate Crimes Hurt More.” American Behavioral Scientist 45(4):626-638. DOI: 10.1177/0002764201045004006.
FBI. 2021. “Hate Crimes Case Examples: Two Mississippi Men Sentenced for Crossburning in Predominantly African American Residential Area.” Crimes committed October 2017.
FBI. 2021. “Hate Crimes Case Examples: Colorado Man Charged With Federal Hate Crime for Plotting to Blow Up Synagogue.” Crime committed November 2019.
FBI. 2021. “Hate Crimes Case Examples: Missouri Man Indicted for Hate Crime and Arson Charges.” Crimes committed April 2020.
Bureau of Justice Assistance. November 1999. A Policymaker’s Guide to Hate Crimes. NCJ162304. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. January 2018. Discrimination in America: Final Summary. Figure 10.
FBI. n.d. “Hate Crimes.”
FBI. n.d. “Uniform Crime Reporting: Hate Crime Statistics.”
Bureau of Justice Statistics. n.d. “Data Collection: National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).”
Tim Fitzsimons. 2019. “Nearly 1 in 5 hate crimes motivated by LGBTQ bias, FBI finds.” NBC News, Nov 12.
Mark A. Walters, Susann Wiedlitzka and Abenaa Owusu-Bempah. 2017. Hate Crime and the Legal Process: Options for Law Reform. Brighton, UK: University of Sussex.
U.S. Senate. n.d. “The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871.” Accessed 3/18/21.
Char Adams. 2021. “How the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act is being used in this latest Trump lawsuit.” NBC News, Feb 17.
FBI. 2019. “About Hate Crimes.” Accessed 1/12/21.
FBI. 2018. “About the UCR Program.” Accessed 2/4/21.
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, as Division E of HR 2647. 111th Congress.
Department of Justice. 2018. “The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.”
Jason Slotkin. 2020. “After Ahmaud Arbery’s Killing, Georgia Governor Signs Hate Crimes Legislation.” NPR, June 26.
Andrew DeMillo. 2021. “Critics say scaled-back Arkansas hate crimes bill is a farce.” AP News, April 1.
MI 750 §147b “Ethnic intimidation,” added 1988.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL). 2019. “Indiana Will Remain on the ADL List of States Without a Hate Crimes Law.” ADL, April 12.
Brennan Center for Justice. 2019. State Hate Crime Statutes. See footnote 3.
NY Penal Code §485.10 and NY Corrections Code §205.
Ibid., 20.
The Sentencing Project. 2018. Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Washington, D.C.
Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-9-121(3.5).
Ibid.
Connecticut Statutes 54-56e.
Wisconsin Statutes § 938.34(14D).
A.C.A. § 16-123-106.
Department of Justice. 2021. “Federal Laws and Statutes.”
FBI. 2019. “Table 12: Agency Hate Crime Reporting by State and Federal, 2018.”
For example: ADL. 2019. Hate Crime Laws: The ADL Approach.
Mark Austin Walters. 2019. Repairing the harms of hate crime: towards a restorative justice approach? Annual report for 2018 and Resource Material Series, 108. pp. 56-72.
Lynn Langton and Madeline Masucci. 2017. Hate Crime Victimization, 2004-2015. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hate Crime Series. NCJ 250653. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 2018. Discrimination in America: Final Summary. Boston: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Ibid.
Dr. Barbara Oudekerk. 2019. “Hate Crimes Statistics” presentation. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Duren Banks, Joshua Hendrix, Matthew Hickman, and Tracey Kyckelhahn. 2016. National Sources of Law Enforcement Employment Data. Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 249681. Washington D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice.
FBI. 2019. “Table 12: Agency Hate Crime Reporting by State and Federal, 2018.”
Ibid.
Ken Schwencke. 2017. “Why America Fails at Gathering Hate Crime Statistics.” ProPublica, Dec 4.
Ibid.
Rebecca Beitsch. 2016. “Should Killing a Police Officer Be a Hate Crime?” Pew Trusts, August 3.
Ibid., 19.
National Research Council. 2012. Deterrence and the Death Penalty. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.
Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide.

53
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84
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88

Joey Mogul, Andrea Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock. 2011. “False Promises: Criminal Legal Responses to Violence Against LGBT People.” In Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United
States. Boston: Beacon Press.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Detailed Tables. Table 1.22B.
Ezekiel Edwards, Will Bunting, and Lynda Garcia. 2013. The War on Marijuana in Black and White. New York, NY: American Civil Liberties Union.
U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Population estimates, July 1, 2019 (V2019). Hispanic or Latino (18.5%) and Black or African American alone (13.4%). Accessed April 28, 2021.
E. Ann Carson. 2020. Prisoners in 2019. NCJ 255115. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Table 14 (state) and Table 16 (federal).
Ibid., 26.
Winston Luhur, Ilan Meyer, and Bianca Wilson. May 2021. Policing LGBQ People. Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.
Movement Advancement Project and Center for American Progress. February 2016. Unjust: How the Broken Criminal Justice System Fails LGBT People.
Council of Economic Advisers. 2015. Fines, Fees, and Bail: Payments in the Criminal Justice System That Disproportionately Impact the Poor. Issue Brief.
Ibid.
FBI. 2020. “2019 Hate Crime Statistics: Table 9: Known Offenders.”
FBI. 2020. “2019 Hate Crime Statistics: Table 1: Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Bias Motivation.”
Jessica Holdman. 2020. “Black, homeless people among the first arrested under Columbia’s new hate speech law.” The Post and Courier, Oct 31 (updated Feb 22, 2021). Accessed 3/1/21.
Robby Soave. 2020. “Under a New Law, People Charged With Hate Crimes Are Disproportionately Black and Homeless.” Reason, Nov 2.
Ibid.
Ned Parker and Mimi Dwyer. 2016. “Out in the Cold: Attacks against LGBT community rarely prosecuted as hate crimes.” Reuters, June 28.
Samuel Duimovich. 2014. “A Critique of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act Regarding its Protection of Gays and Lesbians (And How A Private Right Could Fix It).” S. Cal. Review of Law and Social Justice
23(2): 295-327.
Ibid.
Avlana Eisenberg. 2014. “Expressive Enforcement.” UCLA Law Review 61: 858-921.
Ibid., 26.
Edward Smith and Shaun Harper. 2015. Disproportionate Impact of K-12 School Suspension and Expulsion on Black Students in Southern States. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, The Center
for the Study of Race and Equity in Education.
End Zero Tolerance. 2020. ACLU of Pennsylvania.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016. Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. DOI:10.17226/23482.
Jeffrey Collins. 2020. “Charleston church massacre looms over SC hate crime debate.” AP News, August 26.
NYC Against Hate Coalition Policy Framework: Investing in a Restorative Community-Based Approach.
National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP). 2018. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and HIV-Affected Hate and Intimate Partner Violence in 2017. New York City: NYCAVP.
Movement Advancement Project. January 2021. Why We All Need the Equality Act Now.
Ibid.
IACP. Hate Crime in America Policy Summit. Accessed 2/1/21.
Vanita Gupta. 2017. “Responses to the Increase in Religious Hate Crimes.” Testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). 2018. “Hate Crimes, Explained.” SPLC, April 15.
Office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta. May 11, 2021. “Attorney General Bonta Launches New Racial Justice Bureau, Announces Virtual Convening Against Hate Crime With Big City Mayors.”
State of California Department of Justice.
NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 2018. Discrimination in America: Final Summary. Boston: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Lynn Langton and Madeline Masucci. 2017. Hate Crime Victimization, 2004-2015. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Hate Crime Series. NCJ 250653. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.
Ibid., 81.
Kai Wiggins. 2019. “The Dangers of Prosecuting Hate Crimes in an Unjust System.” American Constitution Society.
See for example: Michigan Alliance Against Hate Crimes. A Guide for Creating and Maintaining Community-Based Collaborations to Address Hate and Bias.

ABOUT THIS SPOTLIGHT
This report is part of an ongoing series that will provide in-depth analyses of laws and policies tracked at the Movement Advancement Project’s
“Equality Maps,” found at www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps. The information in this report is current as of the date of publication.

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