Office of Justice Assistance: 2008 Data on Wisconsin Hate Crimes Released
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Madison, WI – The Office of Justice Assistance (OJA) has released 2008 hate crime data, published for the first time as separate report, as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting program in the state.
The Office of Justice Assistance gathers crime and arrest data from state law enforcement agencies in accordance with federal law. Since 1992, in response to the passage of the federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, the FBI has worked with states to gather and publish hate crime statistics.
The OJA Hate Crimes report includes information on incidents, offenses, victims and offenders in reported crimes. A crime is considered a hate crime if the crime was motivated in whole or in part by a bias against the victim’s perceived race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.
Of the 171,684 violent and property crimes reported in Wisconsin in 2008, 99 incidents (108 offenses) were determined by law enforcement to be motivated by an offender’s bias. In 2008, hate crimes were committed by 164 offenders against 116 victims.
Hate crimes occurred in 31 of the state’s 386 law enforcement jurisdictions.
A crime is reported as a hate crime only when an investigation reveals sufficient evidence that an offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by an offender’s bias.
Hate crime victims were predominately individuals (75%); business and society as a whole were the next most common victim categories (6% each).
Racial bias was the most prevalent motivating factor in hate crimes (59%). Vandalism and Simple Assault were the most frequent offenses committed. Hate crimes occurred most often in a street, alley, or parking lot (34%).
The full 2008 Hate Crimes Report can be downloaded on the Office of Justice Assistance website at http://oja.wi.gov.
About OJA’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program
The Office of Justice Assistance (OJA)—in accordance with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program—gathers crime and arrest data contributed by 386 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies.
OJA’s annual Crime and Arrest reports use the UCR data to publish statistics on eight major criminal offenses as designated by the FBI: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
From the same UCR data, OJA also publishes reports on specialized facets of crime, such as hate crimes. While OJA’s annual Crime Report quantifies the number of occurrences of specific crimes in eight broad categories, the Hate Crimes Report focuses on underlying biases that motivate an offender’s commission of a reported crime.
Prior to 2008, hate crime data was included in OJA’s Crime in Wisconsin report. OJA now presents a more comprehensive analysis of hate crimes data in a separate report.
Posted @ 10:00 a.m.
