FBI Hate Crime Statistics 2010

In the wake of the shooting at the Sikh mosque in Wisconsin, I have come across an interesting article on the question of how hate crimes against Sikhs are being reported in the annual FBI report. The last report published covers the year 2010. When you look at the category of offenses committed by religious bias, Sikhs are not given their own category.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement.  A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

• 65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
• 13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
• 9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
• 4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
• 3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
• 3.3 percent were anti-Protestant. 
• 0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.  (Based on Table 1.)
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So the question arises as to what category offenses committed against Sikhs would be counted. That brings me to the below link.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/read-letter-congress-sent-attorney-011700788.html

The link refers to a letter sent to the FBI by Congress inquiring as to how offenses against Sikhs are counted. Unfortunately, the link does not seem to actually have the letter. Here it is.

http://crowley.house.gov/sites/crowley.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20DOJ%20on%20Hate%20Crimes%20Against%20Sikh-Americans%2004-19-2012_0.pdf

'"Yet our understanding is that the FBI may be relying on older forms which count hate crimes against Sikhs as anti-Islamic (Muslim) hate crimes."

Given what happened in Wisconsin last week, it does behoove law enforcement now to determine the exact motivation for any offenses against Sikhs. In the wake of 9-11, one Sikh was killed because he was, in fact, mistaken for a Muslim. If this is still a problem, or if there are negative attitudes against Sikhs out there, we need to know for the sake of both our Muslim population and our Sikh population.  It may also indicate that those statistics on Muslims may be inaccurate.