U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee - Larry E. Craig, Chairman - Jade West, Staff Director
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June 14, 2000
(Revised)

Fact Sheet on Crimes & Hate Crimes

In 1998, there were 16,914 murders committed in the United States, and 13 of those were hate crimes.

More than 750 young children were murdered in 1998. When population is factored in, murder is more than 300 times more deadly for kids than hate crimes are for all Americans.

Babysitters are 77 percent more murderous than government-defined "haters". In 1998, 23 children were murdered by their babysitters.

In 1998, there were an average of 46 murders committed in the United States every day. About once every 30 days one of these murders was determined to have been motivated by that special kind of hatred that qualifies it as a hate crime. Other motivations, no matter how depraved, and other sorts of hatred, no matter how malevolent, are not selected for special reporting.

An American is about 1,250 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime motivated by God-knows-what wicked reason than to be the victim of a hate crime. For property crimes, the ratio is more than 47,300 to one.

More than 80 percent of what the government counts as hate crimes against persons, and more than 90 percent of what the government counts as hate crimes against property, are crimes of such little consequence that they are not even counted among the crimes in the standard compilation of crime data, the Uniform Crime Reports.

For every 20,000 murders in 1998, 15 were hate crimes (0.077%). For every 20,000 forcible rapes in 1998, 2 were hate crimes (0.012 %). For every 20,000 robberies in 1998, 5 were hate crimes (0.026%). For every 20,000 aggravated assaults in 1998, 22 were hate crimes (0.111%).

About 25,000 parents had sons murdered, and about 8,500 parents had daughters murdered in 1998. About 25 of those parents lost their children to hate crimes.

These points and other issues are discussed in our longer paper, "Crimes and Hate Crimes: What the Numbers Tell Us" (June 15, 2000).

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