THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 1995 TAG: 9511140119
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 35 lines
Hate crimes reported to police declined in 1994, with the number of murders dropping from 20 to 13, the FBI said Monday.
The bureau said 5,852 hate crime incidents were reported during 1994, compared with 7,684 incidents in 1993.
As before, racial bias was the most frequent motivation for hate crime, accounting for 60 percent of the incidents in 1994.
Religious bias was behind 18 percent of the incidents. Bias against homosexuals, mostly males, accounted for 12 percent of the incidents.
The remainder stemmed from bias against national origin or ethnic background.
The two most frequent criminal acts were intimidation at 39 percent, followed by vandalism and property destruction at 24 percent.
The most frequent racial targets were blacks, accounting for 2,666 victims, followed by whites, with 1,268 victims.
The most frequent religious targets were Jews, who accounted for 1,074 victims.
There were 768 homosexual victims.
Fifty-seven percent of the known offenders were whites; 30 percent were blacks. Offenders were not known in 39 percent of the incidents.
KEYWORDS: MURDER STATISTICS HATE CRIME by CNB