Speaking to Washington Post on this issue, Jack Levin, a sociology and criminology professor, who’s published books on hate crimes, says, one has to get “into the head of the perpetrator and get at his intentions” to establish a hate crime. “And so the evidence in most hate crimes consists of what a defendant says at the crime scene or the graffiti that he may leave there. So if he voices a racial slur, then it’s much more likely that the offense will be tried as a hate crime regardless of what that offense may be.”