Hate Crimes

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 defines a hate crime as a crime in which the victim is targeted because of his or her "actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation." Hate crimes, or bias crimes, are criminal offenses motivated by a bias against a group of people and can include crimes against person or property. The motivation for such crimes is partially or entirely based on the offender's bias against the group to which the victim recognizably belongs. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concluded that law enforcement agencies reported 8,263 hate crimes in the United States in 2020. Of the 8,052 reported crimes involving a single bias...