Pursuant to the terms of the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) the FBI is required to issue an annual report detailing the total number of hate crimes reported by law enforcement authorities nationwide. Under this statute, hate crimes based on the victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability are recorded. The data is taken directly from police reports. If the officer writing the report includes information about an alleged bias motivation in the report, the incident will be included in the FBI report. Many states also have their own independent systems of recording hate crimes and many publish separate state crime reports, with specific hate crime sections.