NCJ Number
184847
Date Published
June 2000
Length
43 pages
Annotation
This report presents data on hate crimes under California law reported to or known by police in 1999.
Abstract
As defined in California Penal Code Section 13023, a hate crime is any criminal act or attempted criminal act motivated by hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. These crimes must be reported to the Department of Justice by law enforcement agencies. Each crime report includes information about bias motivation, type of crime, location of crime, number of victims, and number of known suspects. In 1999, the California Department of Justice received reports from 244 law enforcement agencies that detailed 1,962 hate crime events. Included in these events were 2,001 offenses, 2,436 victims, and 2,021 known suspects. Sixty percent of the offenses were motivated by the race/ethnicity of the victim, and violent crime accounted for 67.6 percent of known offenses. Most hate crimes occurred at a residence, home, or driveway (30.9 percent), or on a highway, road, alley, street, or sidewalk (26.2 percent). Prosecutorial data indicate that in 1999 there were 372 hate crime complaints filed by district attorneys and elected city attorneys. A total of 174 convictions were obtained, yielding a conviction rate of 46.8 percent. Extensive tabular data and a discussion of data characteristics and known data limitations