Trends and Issues Update

              Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority 1
Measuring hate crime in Illinois
By Shawn A. Hutton
and Erica N. Morrow
        
Criminal Justice Information Authority
Vol. 1, No. 9 January 2000
Trends & Issues
UPDATE
Illinois law defines a hate crime as
the commission of an illegal act
based on the actual or perceived
race, color, creed, religion, ancestry,
gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity
of another individual. In 1994, an
amendment was passed to include
those crimes motivated by a bias
against people with disabilities.
The law also dictates that the
motive behind a hate crime may
justify a term of imprisonment, or be
considered by the court as a reason
to impose a more severe sentence
for the offense committed. In
Illinois, a hate crime is categorized
as a Class 4 felony for the first
offense, and a Class 2 felony for
subsequent offenses.
Hate crimes include criminal acts,
such as homicide, assault, or criminal
damage to property, in which the
offender was motivated by a specified
demographic characteristic of a
victim, such as race, sexual orienta-tion,
or disability.
Legislation
The federal Hate Crime Statistics Act
of 1990 required the establishment of
a national system for collecting hate
crime statistics (Table 1). The FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reporting program
was charged with implementing a
voluntary data collection system for
law enforcement agencies. With the
assistance of several state and local
law enforcement agencies experienced
in hate crime investigation, compre-
Congress is examining the Hate
Crimes Prevention Act, a bill that
would expand hate crime incident
reporting and data collection to
include jurisdictions that currently are
not mandated to report hate crimes.
Although the Illinois State Police
(ISP) has collected bias crime data
since 1991 using the FBI’s Hate
Crime Incident Report form, the
reporting of hate crime information
hensive guidelines were developed to
compile hate crime data.
The Church Arsons Prevention
Act was passed in 1996 in response
to arson fires that destroyed more
than 65 churches during an 18-month
period. The law extended the Hate
Crime Statistics Act until 2002, and
allowed federal authorities to
prosecute those who damaged
religious property.
Table 1
State and federal hate crime laws
         
	   
       
       

          
       
   
	         
                                           
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