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Massachusetts Hate Crimes, 2005

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Massachusetts Hate Crimes, 2005 Massachusetts Hate Crimes, 2005 Commonwealth Fusion Center December, 2006 Executive Summary The 2005 Hate Crime report for Massachusetts was compiled using data voluntarily supplied from police departments across the Commonwealth, including 70 municipal agencies, the Massachusetts State Police, Transit Police, and nine campus police agencies. In total, the Commonwealth Fusion Center’s Crime Reporting Unit received a total of 344 reports which included 534 criminal offenses within those cases. Examining the 2005 submissions for hate crimes revealed that bias against race/ethnicity or national origin was the most widely reported bias motivation, representing 63% of the total. Sexual orientation bias follows, with religious bias third in number. Hate crime in Massachusetts for 2005 focused on specific victims rather than religious, ethnic or government symbols. Individuals were primarily the targets for bias crimes in the Commonwealth, with 84% of the reports while businesses or government property were targeted 5.5% of the time. Poice cited religious targets in less than 3% of the incidents. Looking at gender and race of the victims of these crimes, the analysis found that white males were the most likely victims. Black victims of both genders did make up 35% of the total population of victims. The average age of victims was approximately 31 years old. Victims were reported to injured in a small percentage of cases. Police officers investigating these incidents reported that in 77% of the cases where with information was provided there was no visible injury to the victim. The offender profile for year 2005 mirrors victim characteristics in several ways, such as age, race, and gender. Male made up an overwhelming majority of the offenders at 83% of all reports. Most of the offenders were white with an average age of 28 years. The age group with the largest number of offenders was 16 to 20 year olds. Bias incidents reported by police in Massachusetts occur in a variety of locations both public and private. Over a quarter of incidents reportedly occur on a highway or street (27%), but residence (26%) is the second most reported location. Less than 3% of incidents occurred at religious sites such as churches or synagogues. Specific types of bias motivations were reported to police departments as well. The largest category of bias incidents were determined to be anti-Black, with 33% of all incidents, or 119 of the incidents reported. Another 18% or 63 incidents were classified as anti-gay. Anti-white and anti-Semitic cases ranked third and fourth in frequency of occurrence. While there has been a great deal of media attention to discrimination against the Islamic religion or person from Arab countries, only 5% of the 2005 cases were classified as either anti-Arab or anti-Islamic. Bias crimes entail a variety of different criminal offenses ranging from violent crimes to vandalism and harassment. In 2005, the significant portion of incidents involved harassment and II criminal threats. There were no bias-related homicides reported in the 344 police reports submitted. There were, however, 39 aggravated assaults reported. The reporting system used also captures information on the types of weapons used in the commission of the offense. Firearms were used in only 6 cases, or less than 3% of the incidents, with knives or cutting instruments used in 11 cases or 5% of the total. Hate criminals most often fought without weapons 40% of the time or were involved in fistfights where hands, fists or feet were used (25%). III Table of Contents Executive Summary.........................................................Page I Hate Crime 2005 Definitions..............................................................1 Reports.................................................................1 Categories of Bias Reported................................................2 Categories of Crimes Reported..............................................3 Victim and Offender Profile Target of Bias Crimes...............................................4 Victim Race and Age................................................5 Perpetrator Race and Age............................................6 Characteristics of Incidents.................................................7 Tables Table 1: Bias Types.......................................................8 Table 2: Crimes Committed.................................................8 Table 3: Target of Hate Crime...............................................9 Table 4: Age of Victims....................................................9 Table 5: Race of Victims...................................................9 Table 6: Gender of Victims.................................................9 Table 7: Age of Perpetrators...............................................1 0 Table 8: Race of Perpetrators...............................................1 0 Table 9: Gender of Perpetrators.............................................1 0 Table 10: Location of Hate Crime...........................................1 1 Table 11: Weapon Used...................................................1 1 Table 12: Injury to Victim.................................................1 2 Table 13: Crime by Agency................................................1 3 Table 14: Bias Type by Agency.............................................1 6 Table 15: Bias Type by County.............................................1 9 Table 16: Crime by County................................................1 9 Table 17: Agencies Reporting Hate Crimes. 2 0 Table 18: Agencies Reporting Zero Hate Crimes. 2 1 Table 19: Non-participating Agencies........................................2 4 IV Definitions Hate Crime Any criminal act to which a bias motive is evident as a contributing factor. The Reporting Act covers bias on account of race, religion, ethnicity, handicap, gender, or sexual orientation. Hate crimes can be reported only by law enforcement agencies. Zero Report An official report by a police department stating that no hate crimes were reported to the department during the reporting period. Non-responding agencies Local police departments and other law enforcement agencies which are not in compliance with the reporting provisions of the Reporting Act. These agencies have failed to indicate how many, if any, bias crimes occurred in their jurisdiction. Reporting agencies Local police departments and other law enforcement agencies which have voluntarily reported the incidence of identified bias crimes in their jurisdiction. Agencies can comply with the Reporting Act by reporting the number of bias crimes, even if zero. Participating agencies which reported zero hate crimes for 2005 are separately listed. Reports by Law Enforcement Agencies Hate crimes were reported by 70 local police departments, State Police, Transit police and 9 campus police agencies. These agencies had a total population of 3,034,000. A total of 344 hate crime reports were filed by these agencies, which included 534 criminal offenses and 358 bias motivations. An additional 221 municipal police departments, 29 campus police agencies and one specialize agency reported zero hate crimes during 2005. These agencies had a total population of 3,172,842. 61 municipal police agencies and 4 campus police departments did not participate in the hate crime reporting program. These agencies had a population of 147,901. In the report that follows, it should be noted that there may be multiple offenses, bias motivations, victims and offenders reported in each incident report. As a result, there are more responses than there are cases. -1- Categories of Bias Reported Bias motivations break down as follows: of the 493 bias motivations for particular crimes reported, race/ethnicity/national origin bias constituted the largest category of reported motives, with 63.4% of the total. Offenses motivated by sexual orientation bias were the second most frequent category, with 21.2% of the total. Offenses related to religious affiliation were the third most prevalent, with 12.9%, while offenses against mental or physical handicap status were each reported as 0.6% of the total. -2- Categories of Crimes Reported Of the total of 524 crimes reported, harassment and threats were the most frequent offenses, representing 34.7% of the total. Other frequent crime categories were damage to property (16.2%), general civil rights violations (11.3%), simple assault (10.7%), vandalism (8.0%) and aggravated assault (7.4%). -3- Victim and Offender Profile A person was the target of 83.5% of cases with valid information. A business or government property was the second most frequent target of bias crimes, with 5.5% of incidents. Private property was targeted 5.4%, followed by religious property, with 2.7%. -4- The victim of hate crimes (in the cases where information on the victim's race was available) was white in 50.6% of cases, black in 35.3% of cases. 64.8% of victims were male. The victims whose age was reported had a mean age of 31.1 years, and a median age of 28 years. -5- The perpetrator of hate crimes was white in 57.3% of cases, and black in 35.4% of cases in the 274 cases where this information was available. The perpetrator was male in 83.3%, and had a mean age of 28.4 years and a median age of 24. -6- Characteristics of the Incident The majority of incidents occurred on a highway or street (26.9%) or in a residence (25.7%). Other locations where incidents occurred were parking lots/garages (4.5%), commercial/office buildings (3.0%) and
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