NCJ Number
235640
Date Published
July 2010
Length
66 pages
Annotation
This report presents statistics on hate crimes that occurred in California during calendar year 2009.
Abstract
This report fulfills the statutory mandate that the Attorney General submit an annual report to the Legislature on crimes motivated by the victim's race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or physical or mental disability as reported by law enforcement agencies. Under California law, a hate crime is defined as "a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victims: disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics." The report's section on crime data indicates that hate-crime events in California decreased 21.3 percent, from 1,397 in 2008 to 1,100 in 2009. The number of victims of reported hate crimes decreased 22.2 percent, from 1,698 in 2008 to 1,321 in 2009. Of the 479 hate-crime cases referred for prosecution, 363 were filed by district attorneys and city attorneys. Of the 257 cases with a known disposition, 131 were hate-crime convictions; 92 were other convictions; and 34 were not convicted. The report's section on trend data provides data on hate crimes in California for the previous 10-year period. Since 2000, hate crimes with a bias related to race/ethnicity/national origin have been consistently the most common type of hate crime, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all hate-crime events. Hate crimes with an anti-Black bias motivation continue to be the most common hate crime, accounting for at least 26 percent of all hate crime events since 2000. In 2009, hate crimes with a sexual-orientation motivation were the second most common type of hate crime, composing 22.3 percent of hate crimes. 14 tables and appended data characteristics and known limitations