Recently, society has recognized a new form of crime: bias or hate crime. Yet law enforcement agencies are still struggling with how to apply legal definitions of bias crimes to the reality of criminal behavior in their jurisdictions. In 1990, following the passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began collecting information on bias crime as part of its well-established Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Despite the fact that the National Hate Crime Data Collection Program has been attached to the UCR Program, there has been mounting criticism about the accuracy of the data. In order to gain a better understanding of the how the policies and procedures of the UCR Program influence law enforcement participation in the National Hate Crime Data Collection Program, the authors sent a survey to the State UCR Program manager in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. The survey focused on level of participation throughout the State law enforcement agencies, quality assurance policies, and the State’s bias crime laws. Results indicated that States with a greater commitment to targeting bias crime as a special category of crime were more successful in participating in the National Hate Crime Data Collection Program and had more valid data to offer. The authors recommend that State UCR programs should adopt policies that encourage law enforcement participation in bias crime reporting and establish procedures for verifying hate crimes that are reported by local law enforcement. Tables, figures, notes, references