Why This is Important

Maine is seeing growth of a more and more diverse population that can benefit all local communities. Incidents of hate crimes, and other violations related to bias and/or prejudice, harm a community’s ability to meet the needs of all children and families in all of their diversity. When people feel threatened, when property is damaged and when people are attacked or killed because of hate, bias or prejudice, the whole community is called upon to act.

Where We Stand

“Hate crimes” are criminal incidents motivated by bias against persons because of their perceived race, religion, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity/national origin. In Maine, they may include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, simple assault, intimidation, vandalism and harassment. Any particular hate crime incident may involve one or more offenders and one or more victims. The 61 incidents occurring in 2005 involved 56 victims, perpetrated by 71 offenders. The 59 incidents in 2006 involved 65 victims with at least 56 offenders.

Local law enforcement agencies in Maine reported that the number of hate crime incidents dropped between 1995 and 1999, before returning to the 1995 level in 2003. However, there was a slight decline in the number of hate crimes between 2005 and 2006.  The type of hate crimes, however, has changed.  Racially motivated incidents increased from 37% in 2005 to 49.2% in 2006, while sexual orientation bias and religious bias decreased.  Sexual orientation bias continued to decrease from 51.9% in 2004, to 34.4% in 2005, and to 27.9% in 2006.  Religion bias decreased from 24.6% to 13.1% during this time. This is still greater than the 8.6% in 2004.  Incidents relating to ethnicity/origin increased from 3.3% to 8.4%.  Just under 2% of incidents related to disabilities in 2006, while none did in 2005.

Data Source and Context

Hate crime data is generated by local law enforcement agencies as part of the National Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. This program is administered by the State Police in Maine and all crime data from the UCR is published annually in Crime in Maine. That data is available on-line at http://www.state.me.us/dps/cim/crime_in_maine/cim.htm.