As defined in California Penal Code section 13023, a hate crime is any criminal act or attempted criminal act motivated by hatred based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability. These crimes must be reported to the Department of Justice by law enforcement agencies. Information about bias motivation, type of crime, location of crime, number of victims, and number of known suspects is included in each crime report. In 1997 the Department of Justice received reports from 242 law enforcement agencies detailing 1,831 hate crime events. Included in these events were 2,023 offenses, 2,279 victims, and 2,206 known suspects. A total of 67.2 percent of the events were motivated by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Violent crime accounted for 73.6 percent of known offenses. Most of the hate crimes occurred on a highway, road, alley, street, or sidewalk (31.5 percent) or at a home or residence of the victim (31 percent). There were 313 hate crime complaints filed by the district attorneys and elected city attorneys; there were 223 convictions, and the conviction rate was 71.2 percent (223 of 313). Data characteristics and known limitations are discussed in the report. 13 tables and appended relevant California laws