Statistics Canada Report on Police-Reported Hate Crime

Statistics Canada has published an article on Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2011:

"In Canada, four specific offences are listed as hate crimes in the Criminal Code: advocating genocide, public incitement of hatred, wilful promotion of hatred, and mischief in relation to religious property. In addition, section 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code allows for increased penalties when sentencing any criminal offence (such as assault or mischief) where there is evidence that the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hatred toward a particular group."

"This report uses data from the 2011 Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR2), which collects information from police services, to examine police-reported hate crime in Canada. More specifically, this report looks at the number of police-reported hate crime incidents in various jurisdictions as well as the characteristics of these incidents, victims, and those accused of these crimes. For the survey, a hate crime is defined as a criminal offence committed against a person or property, where there is evidence that the offence was motivated by hate, based on the victim’s race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor."

"Information on hate crimes is subject to reporting behaviour. The number of incidents actually reported to police as hate crimes may be influenced by public awareness and concern, as well as special hate crime initiatives and policies among police services. This report looks only at police-reported hate crimes, which likely underestimate the true extent of hate crime of various types."

Among the highlights:

• There were 1,332 police-reported hate crime incidents in Canada in 2011, 5% fewer than the number reported in 2010. As a result, the hate crime rate declined from 4.1 to 3.9 incidents per 100,000 population.
• About half (52%) of police-reported hate crimes in 2011 were motivated by race or ethnicity. Another 25% were related to religion and 18% to sexual orientation.
• Mischief was the most commonly reported offence among police-reported hate crimes, making up half (50%) of all hate crime incidents. Overall, the majority of hate crimes involved non-violent offences.
• The proportion of police-reported hate crimes involving violent offences, such as assault and uttering threats, grew from 34% in 2010 to 39% in 2011. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation (65%) or race/ethnicity (41%) were the most likely to involve violent offences.
• The majority of police-reported hate crime incidents were concentrated in major cities. The ten largest cities accounted for 51% of the Canadian population, but reported 64% of total hate crimes. In 2011, the cities with the highest rates of police-reported hate crime were Peterborough and Hamilton.
• In crimes motivated by hate, the accused were predominantly young and male. Among persons accused of hate crimes in 2011, 88% were male, and 60% were under age 25.