Hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity/national origin.

The object of collection is to indicate whether the offender was motivated to commit the offense because of his/her bias against a racial, religious, disability, sexual-orientation group or ethnic/national origin. Because of the difficulty of ascertaining the offender's subjective motivation, bias is to be reported only if 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.