Organization/ Author
FBI
A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity. Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/hate-crimes
Document Type: Website
Tags: Governmental
Country: USA
Year: 2025
DOJ Canada // Anna Ndegwa and Susan McDonald
Hate crimes are criminal acts done by a person who is motivated by an extreme bias or hatred towards a particular social group (CRRF 2020). Hate crimes may be directed at physical, symbolic targets (such as a mosque) or at individuals or groups of people. Research studies show that hate crimes cause “disproportionate harm” to individual victims as well as other members of the community belonging to the targeted social group. These crimes send a message of rejection towards both the target of the crime and their community. For example, an assault can have negative physical and psycho-emotional effects. If the assault occurs because you are a Black person (or a person with a disability or transfemale), the harm is magnified because you cannot change these characteristics of who you are and are at risk of being targeted all your life. Not only are you at risk, but everyone else who looks like you, or has a disability or practices a minority religion or any other immutable characteristic in your family, your community, Canada and even beyond our borders. // Across Canada, police services use a single definition of hate crime to ensure that the data they collect and report on are consistent and can be compared. The definition is found in the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR) Manual (2022, 89): // Hate crime is defined as a criminal violation motivated by hate, based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd16-rr16/p1.html
Document Type: Website
Tags: Scholarly | Governmental
Country: Canada
Year: 2023
Republic of South Africa
(1) A hate crime is— (a) an offence recognised under any law (herein after referred to as an ‘‘underlying offence’’), excluding the common law offence of crimen injuria or an offence referred to in section 4(1); and (b) committed by a person who is motivated by their prejudice or intolerance— (i) towards the victim, the victim’s family member or the victim’s association with or support for a person with one or more characteristics or a group of persons who share one or more of the characteristics; and (ii) which was based on one or more of the actual or perceived characteristics.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202405/50652preventionandcombatingofhatecrimesandhatespeech162023.pdf
Page Number: 8
Document Type: Legislation
Tags: Governmental
Country: South Africa
Year: 2024