Documenting_hate_crimes_in_the.pdf

Documenting Hate Crimes in the United States: Some Considerations on
Data Sources

Gregory M. Herek
University of California, Davis

Hate crimes based on the victim’s perceived sexual orientation or gender identity first came to be
identified in the United States as a social problem requiring national attention in the 1980s. Since then,
the need for accurate documentation of the incidence and prevalence of such crimes has been an ongoing
concern for policymakers, advocates, and law enforcement personnel seeking to understand their extent
and track annual trends. This article describes and provides some historical context for 4 general
documentation sources: victim reports to community antiviolence organizations, community surveys
conducted with nonprobability samples of sexual and gender minority respondents, data from local law
enforcement agencies compiled annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and surveys
conducted with national probability samples. Each source type’s strengths, limitations, and appropriate
uses should be considered when citing hate crimes data.

Keywords: sexual orientation, gender identity, violence & hate crimes, statistics

In the wake of a widely publicized hate crime against sexual and
gender minorities, such as the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse
nightclub in Orlando (Alvarez & Pérez-Peña, 2016), public reac-
tions and media coverage usually include discussion of how prev-
alent such crimes are, whether they are increasing in frequency,
and how they compare with hate crimes targeting other groups
(e.g., Koeze, 2016; Park & Mykhyalyshyn, 2016; Stolberg, 2016).

The need for accurate documentation to address these and other
questions has been an ongoing concern since at least the 1980s,
when hate crimes based on sexual orientation first came to be
identified in the United States as a social problem requiring na-
tional attention. Empirical data were needed to show legislators
and the public that hate crimes constituted a widespread problem
rather than rare occurrences not warranting a governmental re-
sponse. Documentation also was understood to be necessary for
developing effective policy and laws, monitoring trends, designing
targeted interventions and prevention strategies, and identifying
and evaluating appropriate responses to hate crimes (e.g., Herek &
Berrill, 1990; Jenness & Broad, 1997).

This article presents an overview of the main sources and
methods that have been used for documenting hate crimes against
sexual and gender minorities. An understanding of the strengths
and limitations of each approach, as well as the historical context
in which each has developed, is necessary for anyone striving to be
a critical consumer of hate crimes data.

Some Historical Background

In the United States and elsewhere throughout most of the
twentieth century, individual acts of violence were widely consid-

ered “natural” reactions to people who were perceived to be
homosexual or transgressing traditional gender norms. Victims
were routinely regarded as deserving whatever harassment or
violence they experienced—“asking for it”— because of their vis-
ibility or even their very existence (e.g., Berrill & Herek, 1992).

Beginning in the 1970s, however, as the modern movement for
sexual minority rights developed and gay and lesbian communities
organized and attained greater visibility throughout the United
States, sexual minority advocates were increasingly successful in
challenging this worldview, calling upon the criminal justice sys-
tem and society in general to redefine violence not as a normal
consequence of being gay but instead as a serious problem war-
ranting response. Community advocates had considerable success
arguing that antigay1 attacks—like other instances of murder,
assault, robbery, and vandalism—should be regarded as crimes
and that blame and punishment should be directed at the perpe-
trators, not the victims (Herek & Sims, 2008). In response, elected
officials, policymakers, and criminal justice professionals began to
address sexual orientation-based violence as a social problem
(Jenness & Grattet, 2001). This development in many ways built
upon American society’s prior recognition that violent acts against
racial, ethnic, and religious groups were repugnant in a modern
democracy and warranted state intervention (Jenness & Grattet,
2001).

Such crimes came to be called hate crimes or, alternatively, bias
crimes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI; Federal Bureau
of Investigation, 2017) defines a hate crime as a “criminal offense
against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an
offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orienta-
tion, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity” (“Defining A Hate

1 Although many hate crimes in this era targeted gender-nonconforming
people who today would self-identify as transgender or gender queer, they
were typically included under the rubric of “antigay” hate crimes (as were
crimes against lesbians and bisexuals).

My thanks to Jack Dynis and John Gonsiorek for their helpful comments
on earlier drafts of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gregory
M. Herek, Department of , University of California, Davis, 1
Shields Avenue, Davis, 95616. E-mail: [email protected]

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of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity © 2017 American Psychological Association
2017, Vol. 4, No. 2, 143–151 2329-0382/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000227

143

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000227

Crime”). Similarly, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith,
uses the term to refer to “a criminal act against a person or property
in which the perpetrator chooses the victim because of the victim’s
real or perceived race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, disability or gender” (Anti-Defamation League, 2017,
“Definition of a Hate Crime”; see also Herek, 1989; Levin &
McDevitt, 2002).

Hate crimes are different from other crimes in that they not only
attack the victim physically, they also attack a core aspect of the
victim’s personal identity and community membership, compo-
nents of the self that are particularly important to many sexual and
gender minority individuals because of the stress they experience
as a consequence of societal stigma. Whereas being a victim of
violent crime typically has negative psychological consequences,
hate crimes appear to inflict greater psychological trauma than
other kinds of violent crime (Herek, Gillis, & Cogan, 1999). In
addition, hate crimes send a message of fear and intimidation to the
larger sexual and gender minority community.

Although laws aimed at protecting minority groups from vio-
lence and crime have a long history in the United States, the
modern hate crimes movement emerged relatively recently, led by
the Anti-Defamation League and other organizations (Jenness &
Grattet, 2001). Governmental responses to hate crimes came first
at the state level, beginning with California in 1978. The earliest
laws defined hate crimes as motivated by the victim’s race, na-
tional origin, or religion (Grattet, Jenness, & Curry, 1998). During
the 1980s, hate crime laws in many states were written or revised
to include sexual orientation as well (Jenness & Grattet, 2001).
Most state laws work by enhancing penalties for hate crimes, that
is, they increase the punishment for a criminal act if it is deter-
mined to be based on the victim’s sexual orientation, gender
identity, or other group membership (Jenness & Grattet, 2001).

Today nearly all states have some form of hate crime law. At the
time of this writing, statutes in 15 states and the District of
Columbia directly address crimes based on the victim’s actual or
perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. In another 15
states, laws include sexual orientation but not gender identity. Of
the remaining states, 15 have laws that do not list sexual orienta-
tion or gender identity as victim categories and 5 states have no
hate crime law or have a law that addresses bias crimes but lists no
categories and is considered too vague to enforce (e.g., National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2013).

At the federal level, the first major step toward recognition of
antigay hate crimes came in the 1980s. On October 9, 1986, the
first-ever Congressional hearing on antigay victimization was con-
vened by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee’s Criminal Justice subcommittee (Subcom-
mittee on Criminal Justice, 1987). The lead witness was Kevin
Berrill, director of the Anti-Violence Project of the National Gay
Task Force (later the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, or
NGLTF). Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Berrill played a
central role in changing how American society viewed and re-
sponded to hate crimes against sexual and gender minorities. He
worked to raise public awareness about such crimes, played a
leading role in documenting their occurrence, and successfully
advocated for local and national responses to them in law enforce-
ment and the criminal justice system. Other subcommittee wit-
nesses included the directors of antiviolence community groups in
San Francisco and New York, representatives of criminal justice

agencies, and several victims of antigay violence. I provided
testimony on behalf of the American Psychological Association.

The need for documentation of hate crimes based on sexual
orientation was a recurring theme throughout the hearing. After-
ward, therefore, it was a logical step for the participants and allied
groups to direct their focus to a bill called the Hate Crimes
Act (HCSA). Supported by the Hate Crimes Coalition (a
wide range of groups supporting racial, ethnic, and religious mi-
nority rights and civil liberties), it would mandate that the federal
government collect data on crimes based on the victim’s race,
ethnicity, or religion. Although congressional hearings had been
held for the HCSA the previous year, it had not yet been passed.
The NGLTF, American Psychological Association, and other ad-
vocacy and professional groups began working to have sexual
orientation included in the bill’s language (Herek & Berrill, 1992b;
Jenness & Grattet, 2001). These efforts were ultimately successful.

With the addition of sexual orientation, however, the HCSA
drew strong opposition from conservative members of congress,
notably Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC). Nevertheless, the Hate
Crimes Coalition remained committed to keeping sexual orienta-
tion in it. It ultimately was passed with strong bipartisan support
and signed into law by President George H. Bush in 1990 (for
discussions of the passage of the HCSA, see Harding, 1990; Herek
& Berrill, 1992b; Vaid, 1995). It was the first federal law ever to
explicitly recognize problems experienced by individuals because
of their minority sexual orientation.2

Congress subsequently passed other legislation related to hate
crimes. The statute most pertinent to the present discussion is the
2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Preven-
tion Act, or HCPA (PL No. 111– 84). It expanded federal defini-
tions and enforcement of hate crimes, bringing crimes based on
sexual orientation and gender identity under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Justice (DOJ) and authorized the DOJ to assist state
and local jurisdictions with investigations and prosecutions of
bias-motivated crimes of violence. It also expanded the FBI’s
mandate to include collection of statistics about crimes based on
gender and gender identity.

Documenting Hate Crimes

Since the 1980s, documentation of the frequency, prevalence,
and nature of violence against sexual minorities and, more re-
cently, gender minorities has been based mainly on four types of
sources and methods: crime reports to community antiviolence
organizations; community, state, and national surveys of sexual
and gender minority respondents conducted with nonprobability
samples; data reported by law enforcement agencies across the
country to the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and surveys con-
ducted with national probability samples.

Reports to Community Organizations and
Anti-Violence Projects

The earliest documentation of sexual minority hate crime vic-
timization came from the community itself. The proliferation of

2 Concerning the history and activities of the general antihate crimes
movement, see Jenness and Broad (1997) and Jenness and Grattet (2001).
For a briefer summary, see Krouse (2010).

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144 HEREK

social and political activism in the nation’s burgeoning sexual
minority communities during the 1960s and 1970s— coupled with
recognition that local police departments were often unable or
unwilling to provide adequate protection from crimes based on
sexual orientation—led to the organization of local groups and
resources for dealing with violence. In many cities and towns, the
process began with a telephone hotline for reporting hate crimes
(Vaid, 1995). It then often expanded to include other activities
such as social and medical services and referrals, victim advocacy
in courts and hospitals, victim counseling, sensitivity training for
law enforcement personnel, and even organized street patrols in
sexual minority neighborhoods (e.g., Herek, 1992; Wertheimer,
1992). Most community groups gave priority to documenting the
frequency and characteristics of local antigay crimes using reports
from hotlines and similar sources (Jenness & Broad, 1997; see also
Herek & Sims, 2008). That information constituted some of the
first quantitative data about hate crimes based on sexual orienta-
tion.

Under Berrill’s leadership, the NGLTF Anti-Violence Project
began compiling the community-level data into annual national
reports, beginning in 1984 (National Gay Task Force, 1984). The
reports included tallies of the incidents documented by each local
group in the previous year broken down by type of crime (e.g.,
murder, assault, arson) and, to the extent that information was
available, characteristics of the victims and perpetrators. The re-
ports also included narrative accounts of violent attacks and vic-
timization, as well as recommendations for best practices and
action in areas such as legislation, policy, the criminal justice
system, and education. Disseminated to activists, legislators, poli-
cymakers, law enforcement agencies, journalists, academics, and
the general public, they were a valuable resource for raising
awareness about the extent and nature of antigay crimes and
demonstrating the need for institutional responses to them.

A recurring question during this time was whether the inci-
dence3 of hate crimes against sexual minorities was increasing
over time. Comparisons across reports suggested that such an
increase was occurring but the methodology used for compiling
the data limited the confidence that could be placed in any con-
clusions about trends. Until 1990, for example, the reports in-
cluded data from any local organization (and in some cases,
individuals) that submitted it to the NGLTF. Consequently, as
some participating local organizations dissolved and others joined
the effort, the data sources for the reports changed to some extent
from one year to the next. In addition, resource differences among
the participating organizations meant that they varied in their
ability to consistently compile data according to NGLTF standards
(e.g., Herek & Sims, 2008; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Policy Institute, 1990).

To address this lack of continuity, the NGLTF adopted a new
approach in 1990 with the aim of standardizing data collection
procedures across cities and facilitating year-to-year comparisons.
Data were still accepted from antiviolence projects around the
country. However, the report’s focus shifted to local trends in six
cities that each had a well-organized, professionally staffed local
antiviolence project, and where the local law enforcement agencies
tracked crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation (Na-
tional Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, 1990). Thus,
data collected by the same organization could be used to make
comparisons across years for each city. Although this change did

not eliminate all reporting problems, it made the figures more
comparable from one year to the next (Herek & Sims, 2008). The
annual comparisons showed increases in hate crimes in 1990,
1991, and 1992, and then a decline in 1993.

Berrill left the NGLTF in the early 1990s. In 1994, the task of
compiling data and issuing reports shifted to the National Coalition
of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), an umbrella organization of
community antiviolence groups led by the New York City Anti-
Violence Project. Since then, the NCAVP has continued to use the
NGLTF’s approach of basing analyses of trends on data from
select local agencies but has expanded the number of such agen-
cies over time. In addition, since 1995, the NCAVP has reported
data for crimes based on the victim’s gender identity separately
from those based on sexual orientation. For the 2015 report,
NCAVP tallied 1,253 incidents of hate violence against sexual and
gender minorities, as well as people with HIV, using data from 13
local member organizations in 12 states (National Coalition of
Anti-Violence Programs, 2016).

Survey Studies by Academics and Community-Based
Advocates

The victim reports tallied by community organizations have
been an important data source, yielding estimates of the number of
hate crimes of various types that have occurred in a particular city
in a specific year. These are probably lower-bound estimates,
insofar as not all such crimes are reported to the agencies compil-
ing the reports.

In addition to documenting the number of crimes, however, it is
important to know how pervasive they are, that is, the proportion
of sexual and gender minorities that have been victimized during
their lifetime, a specific year, or some other specified period.
Surveys conducted with sexual and gender minority samples using
interviews or self-administered questionnaires have been used to
make these prevalence estimates.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, a few published academic studies
reported data about victimization as part of a larger description of
the experiences of sexual minorities (Bell & Weinberg, 1978;
Harry, 1982; Saghir & Robins, 1973). By the 1980s, antiviolence
projects and other community organizations were conducting their
own questionnaire studies to estimate the local prevalence of hate
crime victimization (Herek & Berrill, 1992a). Academic research-
ers also began to conduct prevalence studies using questionnaire
and survey research methods, often working in concert with com-
munity organizations (e.g., Aurand, Addessa, & Bush, 1985;
Herek, Gillis, & Cogan, 1999; Herek, Gillis, Cogan, & Glunt,
1997).

Some of these questionnaire studies assessed hate crime victim-
ization experienced by members of a particular age group, such as
older adults (D’Augelli & Grossman, 2001) or youth (Huebner,
Rebchook, & Kegeles, 2004; Pilkington & D’Augelli, 1995). Oth-
ers focused on victimization that occurred in a specific setting.

3 As used here, incidence refers to the number of hate crime occurrences
within a given time period (e.g., during a particular calendar year). Prev-
alence and prevalence rate are used to refer to the proportion of the sexual
and gender minority population (or a subgroup of it) that has experienced
hate crime victimization during a given time period (e.g., over the past 12
months, since age 18, in one’s lifetime).

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145DOCUMENTING HATE CRIMES

During the 1980s, for example, several academic researchers con-
ducted questionnaire studies to assess the prevalence of antigay
victimization and discrimination on college campuses (Cavin,
1987; D’Augelli, 1987; Emory Lesbian and Gay Organization,
1987; Herek, 1986, 1993; see also Berrill, 1992).

Although the surveys used nonprobability samples whose rep-
resentativeness of the larger population is unknown, they provided
perhaps the best prevalence estimates available in the 1980s and
1990s, especially when considered in combination. For example,
reviewing data from 24 separate questionnaire studies conducted
with samples of gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals between 1977
and 1991, Berrill (1992) reported that, across the studies, a median
of 9% of respondents reported aggravated assault (i.e., assault with
a weapon) because of their sexual orientation; 17% reported sim-
ple assault (i.e., without a weapon); 19% reported vandalism of
personal property; 44% had been threatened with violence; 33%
had been chased or followed; 25% reported having objects thrown
at them; and 13% had been spat upon.

Most early survey studies of hate crime victimization did not
distinguish transgender from cisgender respondents. More recently,
however, some survey data focusing on the bias-motivated victimiza-
tion experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming people
have begun to appear (see generally Stotzer, 2009). For example, in a
questionnaire study of victimization and harassment in a sample of
402 transgender individuals, Lombardi, Wilchins, Priesing, and
Malouf (2002) found that roughly one fourth of respondents had
experienced violent victimization because of their gender identity. In
a nonprobability sample of 515 transgender adults in San Francisco,
36% of respondents reported they had been physically abused or
beaten because of their gender identity or presentation (Clements-
Nolle, Marx, & Katz, 2006). A statewide survey conducted among
transgender people in Virginia found that 28% reported having been
physically assaulted because of their transgender status, gender iden-
tity, or gender expression (Xavier, Honnold, & Bradford, 2007. The
National Transgender Discrimination Survey (Grant, Mottet, & Tanis,
2011), an online survey conducted with more than 6,400 transgender
and gender-nonconforming respondents, also provides some data
about experiences with physical abuse and harassment, although it did
not include an extensive set of questions about hate crime victimiza-
tion.

FBI Hate Crime

National data about hate crimes were not compiled by law
enforcement agencies until the HCSA was passed in 1990. In
1991, the FBI recorded 4,755 hate crime offenses in 4,558 separate
incidents reported that year to local authorities, of which 422 (9%)
were antihomosexual or antibisexual crimes (Federal Bureau of
Investigation, 1992).4 From 1992 through 2015 (the most recent
year for which data were available when this article went to press),
more than 27,000 incidents based on sexual orientation were
reported to the FBI. In any given year, sexual orientation incidents
accounted for between 11% and 23% of all bias crimes recorded
by the FBI.5

In 2013, the FBI began tracking hate crimes based on the
victim’s gender identity. (Previously, if such crimes were reported
by local law enforcement agencies they were most likely catego-
rized as sexual orientation crimes.) That year, 31 gender identity

crimes were tallied. In the 2014 and 2015 reports, the number of
gender identity crimes were, respectively, 98 and 114.

Although passage of the HCSA and subsequent collection of
hate crime statistics by the FBI were milestone events, the FBI data
are widely believed to significantly underestimate the true inci-
dence of sexual orientation and gender identity crimes for at least
three reasons. First, participation by local law enforcement agen-
cies is voluntary. Ever larger numbers of those agencies have
participated in hate crime reporting since 1991, but most of them
report no occurrence of hate crimes in their jurisdiction (Cassidy,
2016; see also Anti-Defamation League, 2015). From 2013
through 2015, for example, all participating Mississippi law en-
forcement agencies reported a total of only 5 hate crime incidents,
one of which was based on sexual orientation. By contrast, Nevada
and Utah reported, respectively, 155 and 172 incidents during that
same 3-year period, of which 51 and 18 were based on sexual
orientation. It seems unlikely that Mississippi had only a tiny
fraction of the number of hate crimes reported by those other, less
populous states. A more plausible explanation is that hate crimes
occurred but were not reported.

A second problem is that hate crimes are counted only if they
are detected and labeled as such by local law enforcement
authorities. Bias-motivated crimes are more likely to be re-
ported by law enforcement agencies that train their personnel to
identify hate crimes and have special staff to deal with such
crimes and interact with members of minority communities.
Many agencies, however, do not have such procedures in place
(Haider-Markel, 2001). Without training or resources, officers
dealing with a crime may not know how to ascertain whether it
was motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender
identity, or may not even consider this possibility. Conse-
quently, many such incidents probably are reported to police
but never classified as hate crimes.

A third important reason why the FBI statistics understate the
number of hate crimes is that many victims never report their
experience to police authorities. Nonreporting is a problem with
all crime in the United States and occurs for many reasons.
Victims believe the incident was not sufficiently serious to
warrant reporting, for example, or that reporting is futile be-
cause the perpetrator is unlikely to be caught (Langton &
Planty, 2011). Sexual and gender minority victims may be even
less likely to report a hate crime than a nonbias crime because
they fear further victimization by law enforcement personnel or
they do not want their minority status to become a matter of
public record (Berrill, 1992; Berrill & Herek, 1992; Herek,
Cogan, & Gillis, 2002; Herek et al., 1999).

Population-Based Surveys with National
Probability Samples

A fourth approach to documenting hate crimes is to collect
self-reports of victimization experiences from a sample recruited
using probability sampling techniques. The advantage to this ap-

4 The 1991 statistics, however, are not considered complete and are not
comparable with data compiled in subsequent years. The first full report
was issued in 1993 and reported data for 1992.

5 These figures were compiled using the FBI’s annual hate crime reports
published from 1992 through 2016.

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146 HEREK

proach is that findings from the sample can be generalized to the
larger population within a known margin of sampling error. The
disadvantage is that including enough sexual and gender minority
hate crime survivors to permit meaningful statistical analysis ne-
cessitates recruitment of an extremely large sample, a difficult and
expensive undertaking that requires more resources than are usu-
ally available to individual researchers.

One solution to this problem is to utilize existing government-
sponsored surveys with large samples. For example, the National
Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is conducted annually
by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Justice
(BJS), includes approximately 90,000 households and 160,000
persons interviewed each year (Wilson, 2014). Data are collected
about crimes against persons age 12 and older, whether or not they
were reported to law enforcement authorities. The NCVS first
fielded questions about hate crime victimization in 2000, and has
released reports summarizing the data collected between 2000 and
2003 (Harlow, 2005) and between 2003 and 2012 (Sandholtz,
Langton, & Planty, 2013; Wilson, 2014). For 2012, the NCVS
estimate of the number of nonfatal hate crime victimizations was
293,800. Of these, approximately 13% were based on the victim’s
sexual orientation (Wilson, 2014).

The NCAVP data reveal that a substantial proportion of hate
crimes, including those based on sexual orientation, are never
reported to law enforcement authorities and thus are not reflected
in the FBI’s hate crime …