Crime & Safety
FBI Releases Texas Hate Crime Statistics For 2016
Fort Worth had the most hate crimes motivated by race and religion biases. Austin had the most crimes motivated by sexual orientation bias.
Crime statistics released Monday by the FBI show a slight drop in hate crimes reported across Texas between 2015 and 2016.
In 2016, 178 hate crimes were reported to the FBI by law enforcement agencies in Texas. Fort Worth topped the charts with the most bias-motivated crimes for race, 11, and religion, three, while Austin topped the charts for sexual orientation bias-motivated crimes at six. Bedford had five gender identity bias-motivated crimes, the highest amount of this type of incident reported in any jurisdiction in Texas. Several other cities, counties, universities and organizations reported one or two crimes in each of the remaining categories.
The Uniform Crime Reporting Program compiles bias-motivated crimes and includes statistics on offenses, victims, offenders and locations of hate crimes. Hate crimes reported by the FBI fall under the categories of race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender or gender identity.
Find out what's happening in Across Texasfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Statewide, the number of hate crimes dropped from 191 to 178 between 2015 and 2016, but the 2016 numbers were higher than those for 2014 and 2013, when 145 and 132 such incidents were reported.
Find out what's happening in Across Texasfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Hate crimes by category in Texas:
| Motivator | Total Crimes | Percentage |
| Race | 104 | 58.4% |
| Religion | 23 | 12.9% |
| Sexual Orientation | 37 | 20.8% |
| Disability | 5 | 2.8% |
| Gender | 1 | 0.6% |
| Gender Identity | 8 | 4.5% |
File photo via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
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