The numbers are in on hate crime statistics for the state and the news is good, with a few qualifications. On July 15, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the number of hate crimes reported in the state during 2002 had dropped significantly from 2001. According to Hate Crime in California 2002, the number of hate crime events (an event may involve more than one victim, suspect or offense) reported in 2002 was down 26.6 percent from 2001.

The report shows an overall decrease in all categories of hate crime events, or those motivated at least in part by the victim’s race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin or physical or mental disability. Unfortunately, violent crimes, defined as murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault or intimidation, continue to account for the majority of hate crime events reported statewide — nearly 75 percent.

In 2002, hate crime offenses bases on sexual orientation increased nearly six percent. Since the overall number of events decreased, this means that each event involved more than one criminal offense — for instance, if a person is hit, kicked and relieved of their wallet by someone yelling anti-gay epithets, the single event could result in charges of assault and theft with a hate crime enhancement, resulting in multiple offenses.

There were 366 anti-gay hate crime events reported in California in 2002, with a total of 446 victims. This is a decrease of almost 13 percent from 2001, but anti-gay crimes still made up slightly over 22 percent of the total 2002 hate crime events and have consistently been the second largest major bias reporting category since hate crime reporting started in California in 1995, comprising 20 percent or more of the reported hate crimes each year since 1997.

According to Sgt. Mark Dallezotte, GLBT liaison to the San Diego Police Department, San Diego also showed decreases in reported anti-gay hate crimes. Numbers supplied by Dallezotte showed 88 hate crimes in San Diego during 2002, 24 of them based on sexual orientation, as opposed to 168 hate crimes, 39 based on sexual orientation, in 2001. However, although the number of crimes reported is down, the percentage of overall hate crimes based on sexual orientation has increased over the last three years, reaching 27 percent in 2002 and 35 percent for the first six months of 2003, a trend that bears closer attention.

“If you look at the total numbers in a city of 1.2 million … [24 hate crimes] is not very high,” Dallezotte said. “We did an educational campaign and had the March Against Hate that The Center put on, which brought up a little more awareness, and we had more patrols out looking for these suspects, and we have a good working relationship between the police department and the gay community.… I don’t know why there’s been such a reduction.… Last Monday, looking for the last week, there were no hate crimes citywide.… This is just guessing, but I would say there is probably a little more acceptance of the gay community in San Diego because of the larger population here.”

To view Hate Crime in California 2002, visit the Attorney General’s website at www.ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/hatecrimes/pub.htm.