Criteria of a Hate Crime
A hate crime is a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” Hate itself is not a crime—and the Tampa Police Department is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties. Due to the difficulty of ascertaining the offender’s subjective motivation, bias is only reported if the investigation reveals sufficient objective facts to lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that the offender's actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by bias.
Disclaimer:
The Tampa Police Department takes great effort in ensuring that Hate Crime data is as accurate as possible. Information contained in this dataset may change over a period of time. The Tampa Police Department is not responsible for any error or omission from this data, or for the use or interpretation of the results of any research conducted.