TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2007//
TI  - Bias-Crime Reporting: Organizational Responses to Ambiguity, Uncertainty, and Infrequency in Eight Police Departments
JO  - American behavioral scientist
A1  - Cronin, S. W.
A1  - McDevitt, Judith
A1  - Farrell, Ann
A1  - Nolan, J. J.
SP  - 213
EP  - 231
VL  - 51
IS  - 2
N2  - Over the past two decades, significant efforts have established categories of crimes motivated by bias and so enhanced the quality of information about the prevalence of such crimes in the United States. As part of a national reporting system established by the Hate Crime Statistics Act, local police agencies collect information about the prevalence and characteristics of bias-crime incidents. Although the quality of this program has improved since its inception, local police face several challenges to identifying and accurately classifying bias crimes, including the ambiguity of applying legal definitions to cases, uncertainty regarding bias motivation, and infrequency of reported events to law enforcement. Drawing on information from eight case studies, the article examines how local police identify and record bias crimes through various kinds of reporting procedures and organizational structures. The article concludes with best practice recommendations for bias-crime tracking and reporting of incidents of bias crime within local police agencies.<p /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0002-7642
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764207306054
ID  - ref1
ER  -