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Only 29 Convictions in Federal Hate Crime Cases Since FY 2010

“During the first eight months of fiscal year 2015, the federal government reported the convictions of eight individuals who had been charged with federal hate crimes under Title 8 Section 249 of the U.S. Code, according to the latest available data from the Justice Department. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of convictions where a federal hate crime is listed as the lead charge will be twelve for this fiscal year. Since federal hate crime legislation was passed in 2009, there have been a total of 29 such federal convictions, according to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Of these, a guilty plea was entered for 25 defendants; the remaining four were convicted after a jury trial. The average prison sentence was 101 months or over 8 years. The median prison sentence — half got more, half less — was just 4 years (48 months). For more details including a timeline and counts by judicial district, see the report.”

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