What do hate crime statistics really tell us?

I wanted to create a blog about hate crime statistics, I went through the data on the FBI site (www.fbi.gov), and was getting ready to download and analyze the data when I started looking at the data by location.  At first I saw nothing wrong, but then I noticed something rather odd.  States like Alabama (total hate crimes reported 96) had lower hate crime rates than states like Connecticut (164), or Massachusetts (424).  Some states with historical racially explosive histories, had remarkably low levels of hate crimes while many liberal states had very high levels of hate crimes.

The problem, I think, with the data is that it is obtained by voluntary participation of police departments, thus if a particular police department does not take hate crime seriously, or does not investigate it, then in that area, there will be no hate crimes.  Of course this data could be true, but I have to admit I am having a hard time believing it. The columns in blue are the more liberal leaning states, while the colors in red are the more conservative leaning states.

There are other sources of hate crime statistics this one relies on a survey about victimization,

Data Collection: National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Status: Active
Frequency: Ongoing from 1973
Latest data available: 2011
NCVS is the Nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of about 40,000 households comprising nearly 75,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. Each household is interviewed twice during the year. The survey enables BJS to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, city dwellers, or other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.

 The problem with this second set of data is that while it gets around the under reporting of hate crimes by the Police, a survey that states that the majority of hate crimes are commited by women (69%) and blacks (89%), is a little hard to find credible (USDOJ.gov).

                           Race of offenders
                      committing hate crimes
                   White       Black        Other

Race              30.5%      89.1%      59.3%

                          Gender of offenders
                         committing hate crimes
Motivation  Male        Female        Both
Race            55.5%       68.8%        35.9*

I am not saying that this data is wrong, I just don't believe it.  For the second set of data, the majority of people interviewed would have been white, with only 12% being black.  When discussing hate crime, it would make more sense to have a 50 - 50 split.  BTW the FBI shows a completely different picture (of course not a complete picture).
(FBI Offender data, FBI Victim data)

Among the single-bias hate crime incidents in 2010, there were 3,949 victims of racially motivated hate crime.  A closer examination of these victim data showed that:

• 70.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-black bias.
• 17.7 percent were victims of an anti-white bias.
• 5.1 percent were victims of an anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
• 1.2 percent were victims of an anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias.
• 6.0 percent were victims of a bias against a group of individuals in which more than one race was represented (anti-multiple races, group).

In 2010, the races of the 6,008 known hate crime offenders were as follows:

• 58.6 percent were white.
• 18.4 percent were black.
• 8.9 percent were groups made up of individuals of various races (multiple races, group).
• 1.1 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander. 
• 1.0 percent were American Indian/Alaskan Native.
• 12.0 percent were of unknown race.

So for me all this data is meaningless there are clearly problems with both methods of obtaining data, and it also shows the truth about the old statistical saying: rubbish in, rubbish out.   Sometimes you have to take a good look at the data before blindly following it to the incorrect solutions.