California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced today that hate crimes in the state decreased 4 percent in 2011.
A total of 1,060 hate crimes were reported statewide in 2011, down from 1,107 reported in 2010, according to a news release.
Hate crimes involving race, ethnicity or national origin were the most common type of hate crime in the last 10 years and represented 57.5 percent of all hate crime incidents in 2011, officials said. Anti-black hate crimes accounted for 29.5 percent of all hate crimes. Since 2002, anti-Hispanic hate crimes have decreased by 43.6 percent.
Hate crime incidents involving religious bias have increased slightly, from 198 in 2010 to 201 in 2011. Anti-Jewish hate crimes continue to be the most common, accounting for 8 percent of all hate crimes reported since 2002, officials said. Of the 201 religious bias incidents in 2011, 132 were anti-Jewish.
All police agencies and district attorney's offices in California, in cooperation with the Department of Justice, have developed local data collection programs and submitted hate crime statistics for the report. Categories are established by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A total of 313 hate crime cases were referred to prosecutors in 2011, and 253 cases were filed for prosecution, according to the news release. Of the 253 cases filed, 204 were filed as hate crimes. Of the 161 cases with a disposition available for the 2011 report, 76, or 46 percent, were hate crime convictions; 80, or 50 percent, were other convictions; and seven, or 4 percent, resulted in no convictions.
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