The Maine Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) worked with several criminal justice stakeholders across the state to determine arrest rates and outcomes for hate and bias crimes in Maine that were reported by law enforcement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) program from 2008 to 2017. Hate and bias-motivated crimes in Maine that were reported to the FBI’s UCR program decreased by 49% from 2008 to 2017.
The Maine SAC requested arrest data from all local law enforcement agencies that reported at least one hate or bias incident to the FBI during the study period. The Maine SAC then submitted data requests to the Maine Attorney General’s office to ascertain whether a civil order was filed under the Maine Civil Rights Act for the hate and bias crimes reported during the study period. Similar to the request sent to the Attorney General’s office, the Maine SAC sent each District Attorney’s office a request asking for information about any criminal proceedings brought against the accused. Data from these three sources were then merged to determine outcomes (i.e., did an arrest occur, were civil orders filed, and was the case accepted for criminal prosecution) for each incident. A total of 445 hate and bias crimes in Maine were reported to the FBI from 2008 to 2017. Of these crimes, the Maine SAC was able to compile outcome information for 414 cases for this study. This outcome information is generally not available in states across the country. This report summarizes the findings.