Anti-religious hate crimes stats from the FBI

[kwassa]

I stole this from Bluenorthwest's post in GD. This shows the relative numbers of offenses against different groups.

Religious bias

Of the 1,223 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:

60.3 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.
13.7 percent were victims of anti-Islamic (Muslim) bias.
6.1 percent were victims of anti-Catholic bias.
4.3 percent were victims of bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
3.8 percent were victims of anti-Protestant bias.
0.6 percent were victims of anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
11.2 percent were victims of bias against other religions (anti-other religion). (Based on Table 1.)


http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2013

[trotsky]

1. Oh, were all those crimes committed by atheists? n/t

[kwassa]

2. Ask the FBI. Athiests are not victims much, though.

0.6 percent were victims of anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.

[trotsky]

3. So you don't know.

Thanks.

[kwassa]

4. typical Trotsky.

[trotsky]

5. Yeah, typical me.

Asking questions. Take care, kwassa. Keep spreading that Christian love.

[kwassa]

7. Not asking questions, but your attempt to derail a topic.

That is your typical behavior.

You usually resort to this when you start to lose a debate, which is fairly often. I've seen you do this for a decade or so.

This topic is about anti-religious hate crimes, not the number of atheists who commit them. And it is not about you, either.

[trotsky]

8. LOL

Nice to see you haven't changed a bit either.

Launching into personal attacks when your agenda's been exposed.

[kwassa]

10. What agenda would that be?

[trotsky]

11. I think this poster figured it out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=181316

[trotsky]

14. Ah, didn't catch your edit here.

I see now why you're confused about this though, and why you think you have a brilliant point.

Since there are so (relatively) few hate crimes against non-believers specifically because of their non-belief, what do you think that means?

[Scuba]

6. From the link ...

Found under "Incidents and Offenses" is this statement: "Crime reported to the FBI involve those motivated by biases based on race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity."


So what we appear to have here is data on crimes reported to the FBI, not all crimes, nor even all crimes reported to police.

So if some groups are more/less likely to report crimes to the FBI, then these data are skewed by that bias.

[kwassa]

9. These are probably the best available statistics.

Are they entirely accurate? I don't know, but it might be a good indicator of the relative size of the problems against different groups.

[Scuba]

12. "... it might be a good indicator of the relative size of the problems ..." Or not.

[cbayer]

13. Another good source of information is the SPLC.

They have some information that indicates that religiously motivated hate crimes have doubled between the study periods of 2003-2006 and 2007-2011. They correlate this with a rise in Islamophobia. (DoJ data)

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/03/26/doj-study-more-than-250000-hate-crimes-a-year-a-third-never-reported/

[kwassa]

20. Actually, this DOJ information might be much more important than the FBI stats

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/03/26/doj-study-more-than-250000-hate-crimes-a-year-a-third-never-reported/

The numbers are fairly stunning. Just a decade ago, the only figures available were the FBI’s national hate crime statistics, full sets of which have been published since 1995. Those numbers varied between about 6,000 and about 10,000 a year, depending on the year. But it soon emerged that there was an array of serious problems with the voluntary system for reporting hate crimes that resulted in severe undercounts. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ three studies have attempted to remedy that, with the latest suggesting the real numbers are 25 to 40 times higher than the FBI totals.

Like other analyses, the new study also showed that a vastly higher percentage of hate crimes are violent than are crimes overall. About 92% of all hate crimes between 2007 and 2011 were violent, up from 84% in the 2003-2006 period. By comparison, the latest FBI statistics (from 2011) show that just 13% of all crime is violent. Experts also have long noted the extreme violence that characterizes hate crimes, with many murder victims, for instance, showing signs of suffering “overkill.”

Hate crime expert Jack Levin, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said the new report confirmed his longstanding suspicions. “The prevalence of hate crimes is vastly underestimated,” he told Hatewatch. “The FBI hate crime count is based on a voluntary reporting system that many local police jurisdictions refuse to support. In 2011, for example, only five hate crimes were reported for the entire state of Louisiana, just two for Wyoming and 11 for Arkansas.”

[cbayer]

23. Agree. They are actively collecting data, not just summarizing what has

been reported to them.

SPLC is a wonderful organization. Interestingly, the NC killer indicated that he "liked" them on his face book page. That is incredibly ironic.

[skepticscott]

15. Yes, those are numbers

But you're talking about 1200 incidents in a country of over 300 million people. And only about things that rise to the level of, and are reported as actual crimes. This says nothing about incidents of discrimination and hostility expressed towards people because of their religion, or lack of it, including those that occur on the internet. And of course there are very few actual, reported crimes commited against atheists, since they are fewer in number than religionists, and don't always self-identify that way in any case.

[trotsky]

17. It is sad that we can't just all agree...

that every single one of those crimes was wrong. Some want desperately to score a point for their team though.

[hrmjustin]

19. Yes it is sad when people think we are on teams.

But yes I think we actually do angree that everyone of those crimes are wrong.

[Fred Sanders]

16. It is the Muslims that are dying and in terror lately though, 100%?

[cbayer]

18. Not 100% by any means, but the rates of crimes against them have increased

pretty dramatically.

[rug]

21. 0.6%

The angst.

[leveymg]

22. Thanks for posting these FBI Hate Crime stats.

[Humanist_Activist]

24. I would assume this is both underreported AND not committed that often...

Unlike those in many other groups, Atheists don't have easily identifiable groups or dress to point us out. Most atheists in this country are "in the closet" as it were, its difficult to have a hate crime committed against you when no one knows you're an atheist. At the same time, trying to prosecute a bias crime against atheists would be difficult, regardless of severity, and both police and prosecutors may decide to not even attempt it, and the victims themselves may not want to report the crime as such.

[pinto]

25. My off the cuff guess would be that hate crimes of all sorts remain underreported.

And many even when reported may go unprosecuted due to the various legal standards to establish intent. I think there's a growing awareness, though, that may result in others coming forward or more prosecutors considering a hate crime component to a case brought to trial.