There's no room in our society for bigotry and prejudice. You can help UHPD to prosecute hate crimes by reporting hate-motivated activity, particularly where it may involve criminal behavior. Don't wait until someone is harmed — be a crime preventer, not a crime enabler. Tell the police.

A hate crime is targeted criminal activity, usually motivated by prejudice based on perceived personal characteristics of the victims. These motivations may include race, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

Not limited to individual activity, many organizations have been labeled as "hate groups" where their group objectives and activities promote prejudicial behavior and even organized criminal activity targeting groups of citizens.

FBI Guidelines

The FBI Hate/Bias Motivation Guidelines to law enforcement agencies determines what constitutes a hate crime:

Because of the difficulty of ascertaining the offender's subjective motivation, bias is to be reported ONLY if the investigation reveals sufficient objective evidence of biased motivation to meet a probable cause type standard.

Bias is a preformed negative opinion or attitude toward a group of people based on race, religion, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, or disability.

Hate crime is a criminal offense committed against a person or property which is motivated by the offender's bias against race, religion ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, or disability.

MUST HAVE OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE THAT THE CRIME IS MOTIVATED BY BIAS

An important distinction must be made. The mere fact that the offender is biased against the victim's race, religion, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, or disability, doesn't mean that a hate crime was involved. Rather, the offender's criminal act must have been motivated, in whole or part, by his/her bias.

Therefore, before an incident can be reported as a hate crime, sufficient objective facts must be present to meet a probable cause-type standard that the offender's actions were motivated, in whole or part, by bias. While no single factor may be conclusive, these facts, particularly when combined, are support for a finding of bias.

To report any hate-motivated activity that comes to your attention, at the University of Houston, particularly where it may involve criminal activity, contact UHPD at 713-743-3333.