Understanding Hate Crime Victimization and Reporting

The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to publicly report hate crime statistics. However, hate crimes are often under-identified, and variation in reporting hate crimes across communities is largely unexplored. This project will investigate deviation in the nature and extent of hate crime victimization and the reporting of hate crimes across local communities.

This research will examine data on hate crime victimization and reporting from the restricted version of the 2005-2015 National Crime Victimization Survey provided by the Federal Statistical Research Data Center, as well as state and local data from multiple sources, including the Decennial Census, American Community Survey, and Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, among other data sources. The project will investigate the effects of contextual and other characteristics on hate crime victimization and reporting.

Findings from this project will aid scholars, policy makers, and the public on issues related to hate crimes, including localized variation in hate crime and reporting, data-collection strategies, better identification of strategies to attend to the needs of victims, and assessment of programs that pertain to hate crime victimization and reporting.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.