> I get the following ranking by state. The top (NJ) has the highest
> incidence of reported hate crimes in the U.S. AL the lowest.
UK comparison:
in the UK, the differential rates of hate crimes listed are almost entirely due to the different policies of the recording authority (i.e. police authority) towards hate crimes. Hence those police authorities that prioritise hate crimes report them more assiduously than those that do not.
Over time, attitudes towards hate crimes has changed. In the 1980s, police authorities were resistant to the idea that there was a specific category of hate crime, and refused to record them as distinctive. In the 1990s, corresponding to changes in the law, police authorities in the UK began to record specific hate crimes. This was a policy more observed in urban areas than it was in suburban and rural districts where in any event, ethnic minorities were relatively under-represented.
I would go so far as to say that the policy towards hate crimes in London probably exaggerates their incidence. The London metropolitan police regularly record crimes where perpetrators are black and victims white as 'hate crimes', as they do conflicts between Bangladeshis and black Britons. Higher crime statistics = a greater call on the public purse. Modern police chiefs are happy to talk up inter-racial conflict if it means more money, whereas their predecessors preferred to talk down the problem, because they were anxious about public order breaking down.