Courtesy of FBI
By Michael V. Cusenza
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday released the 2015 Hate Crimes Statistics report, leaving least one collective of law enforcement officials to characterize the offenses as “becoming more commonplace.”
District Attorneys Richard Brown (Queens); Cyrus Vance, Jr. (Manhattan); Darcel Clark (the Bronx); Michael McMahon (Staten Island); and Eric Gonzalez (acting Brooklyn) issued a joint statement on Tuesday regarding crimes of bias and hate.
As the District Attorneys who serve all of the residents of New York City, we want to reaffirm our commitment to prosecute vigorously crimes that are motivated by bias and hate.
“We have never and will never tolerate such acts – particularly those involving violence, intimidation, and destruction of property. As demonstrated by [Monday’s] FBI report on national hate crime statistics, these crimes are becoming more commonplace. Within the past week, our offices have become aware of multiple incidents where New Yorkers received threatening messages related to their race or religion, and we are carefully monitoring these reports.
“Crimes of bias are intolerable, and tear at the very fabric of our society. Crimes committed against individuals because of their race, national origin, gender, religion, disability, or sexual orientation do not just inflict physical and emotional damage, but threaten the safety and well-being of all New Yorkers.
“We urge anyone in the five boroughs who may have been a victim of a hate crime to contact our offices, regardless of immigration status. In the case of an emergency, call 911 for immediate assistance. We are here to protect you, and we have the resources to do so.”
According to the FBI, law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 5,850 criminal incidents and 6,885 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity in 2015.
Notable figures included:
Victims of Hate Crime Incidents
- There were 5,818 single-bias incidents involving 7,121 victims, according to the report. A percent distribution of victims by bias type showed that 59.2 percent of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, 19.7 percent were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias, and 17.7 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias. Victims targeted because of the offenders’ bias against gender identity accounted for 1.7 percent of victims of single-bias incidents; disabilities, 1.2 percent; and gender, 0.4 percent.
- Thirty-two multiple-bias hate crime incidents involved 52 victims.
Known Offenders
The FBI noted that the term “known offender” does not imply that the suspect’s identity is known; rather, the term indicates that some aspect of the suspect was identified, thus distinguishing the suspect from an unknown offender.
- Of the 5,493 known offenders, 48.4 percent were white, and 24.3 percent were black or African-American. The race was unknown for 16.2 percent. Other races accounted for the remaining known offenders: 1 percent were Asian; 0.9 percent were American Indian or Alaska Native; 0.1 percent were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and 9.1 percent were of a group of multiple races.
- Of the 3,421 known offenders for whom ethnicity was reported, 25.7 percent were not Hispanic or Latino, 6.1 percent were Hispanic or Latino, and 1.6 percent were in a group of multiple ethnicities. Ethnicity was unknown for 66.6 percent of these offenders.
- Of the 3,331 known offenders for whom ages were known, 84.7 percent were 18 years of age or older.
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
