by Ryan Wilder

While offenders may base their actions on more than one type of bias, race is the most prominent motivator of hate crime in America today.

Hate crimes in the United States have several recognized motivating factors. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports identify the five most significant as racial bias, religious bias, sexual orientation bias, bias against ethnicity or national origin and bias against a physical or mental disability.

Of the five, racial bias occurs most frequently, accounting for 48.8 percent of all reported hate crimes in 2002. The number of reported racially motivated incidents was 3,642. Of these incidents, 67.2 percent of victims were African-American, with all other minorities making up less than 15 percent of the total. These figures clearly show that racism is still a serious problem in America, and that it is still directed largely at blacks.

Perpetrators of race related crimes fall into three major categories, according to a 1996 report by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The largest group is said to commit crimes for the "thrill associated with victimization." Individuals in this group commit acts of violence in order to gain respect from their peers. In 1996, the LCCR estimated that 60 percent of those committing hate crimes fell into this category.

The second classification is the "reactive offender," who commits the crime as a response to a perceived injustice from a member of another group. These offenders may feel insulted by interracial dating or competition for employment with women.

The final group is identified as members of organizations that promote racial and ethnic inequality. They are often members of recognized hate groups like the neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan or street gangs.

The Hate Crime Statistics Act, passed by Congress in 1990 to aid law enforcement in dealing with hate crimes, has not caused a significant decrease in the number or frequency of hate crimes. However, it has given researchers more accurate data to help explain the nature and causes of hate crimes in the U.S.