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American Behavioral Scientist
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Bias-Crime Reporting

Organizational Responses to Ambiguity, Uncertainty, and Infrequency in Eight Police Departments

Shea W. Cronin

American University, Washington, DC, shea.cronin{at}american.edu

Jack McDevitt

Institute on Race and Justice, Boston, Massachusetts

Amy Farrell

Institute on Race and Justice, Boston, Massachusetts

James J. Nolan, III

West Virginia University, Morgantown

Over the past two decades, significant efforts have established categories of crimes motivated by bias and so enhanced the quality of information about the prevalence of such crimes in the United States. As part of a national reporting system established by the Hate Crime Statistics Act, local police agencies collect information about the prevalence and characteristics of bias-crime incidents. Although the quality of this program has improved since its inception, local police face several challenges to identifying and accurately classifying bias crimes, including the ambiguity of applying legal definitions to cases, uncertainty regarding bias motivation, and infrequency of reported events to law enforcement. Drawing on information from eight case studies, the article examines how local police identify and record bias crimes through various kinds of reporting procedures and organizational structures. The article concludes with best practice recommendations for bias-crime tracking and reporting of incidents of bias crime within local police agencies.

Key Words: hate • bias • crime • reporting • police

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 51, No. 2, 213-231 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764207306054
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