May 27, 2009 12:16 PM

African Americans, Latinos Main Targets Of Hate Crime In U.S.

LOS ANGELES, May 27 (Bernama) -- African Americans and Latinos are the most frequent targets of hate crime in Orange County, Southern California, according to a report released on Tuesday.

This mirrors the trend nationwide in the United States, China's Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday.

Of 79 hate crimes reported in 2008 in Orange County, 23 are against African Americans, which shows an increase of 5 cases from 18 in 2007.

The report made public by Orange County's Human Relations Commission said this is alarming since African Americans make up less than 2 percent of Orange County's population.

Hate crimes targeting Latinos continued to increase. There are 15 hate crimes against Latinos in 2008, almost a 100 percent increase in the number reported since 2006.

Nationwide, African Americans are also the main targets of hate crime. According to a report released by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) , 69.3 percent of the hate crimes in the United States were motivated by anti-black bias in 2007, which is the latest statistics made public by FBI.

According to the FBI report, in 2007, law enforcement agencies reported that 4,724 single-bias hate crime offenses were racially motivated. Of these offenses, only 18.4 percent stemmed from anti-white bias and 4.6 percent resulted from anti-Asian and Pacific Islander bias.

Hate crime statistics were first collected at the national level in 1995. Based on the statistics collected since then, one thing remains clear: African Americans are more likely to be victims of hate crime than any other identity group in the United States.

In the last decade alone nearly 40,000 hate crimes against African Americans have been recorded by FBI, which means over 3,000 incidents targeting them per year. While the reporting of hate crimes over all continues to decline, hate crimes against African Americans have remained fairly consistent, and hate crimes against Latinos are also on the rise.

Press reports said while 40,000 incidents of hate crimes against African Americans in a decade should be alarming news, the actual fact is that number is closer to 600,000, which means nearly 45,000 per year.

Hate crimes are usually undercounted in the United States. A study done in 2005 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that hate crimes were actually 15 times higher than reported by the FBI.

U.S. Department of Justice's statistics show 69 percent of the hate crimes motivated by religion happen to Jews, 61 percent of those motivated by sexual orientation happen to homosexual males, and 68 percent of crimes motivated by race target African Americans.

Latinos make up 59 percent of all ethnicities targeted. California , Michigan and New Jersey have the highest number of hate crimes, statistics show.

Across the United States, the majority of hate crimes are committed by males under the age of 30. However, there was an increase of over 50 percent in the number of perpetrators under the age of 19, according to the report by the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

In California , hate crime events increased 9.2 percent from 1, 306 in 2006 to 1,426 in 2007, hate crime offenses increased 13.5 percent from 1,702 in 2006 to 1,931 in 2007, and the number of victims of reported hate crimes increased 9.5 percent from 1,611 in 2006 to 1,764 in 2007, according to statistics collected by California Department of Justice.

According to the California Department of Justice, 53.4 percent of the hate crimes in the race and ethnicity origin were targeting African Americans, 17.2 percent were against Latinos, 7.8 percent were anti-white, and 5.7 percent were anti-Asian and Pacific Islanders.

Anti-black hate crimes increased 15.3 percent from 432 cases in 2006 to 498 cases in 2007. Meanwhile, anti-white hate crimes also increased 14.1 percent from 64 cases in 2006 to 73 cases in 2007.

In the bias motivation category, 65.4 percent were of race, ethnicity and national origin, 18.4 percent were sexual orientation, 14.2 percent were religion orientation.

Civil rights groups are pushing for legislation in the U.S. Congress and urging the U.S. Senate to pass the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The bill has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, which will provide the U.S. Justice Department with money and resources to fight hate crimes and require stiffer sentences for those convicted.

-- BERNAMA

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