I don't know if this is quite what you're looking for, but the Bureau of Justice Statistics website is one I have used many, many times in my college career.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
Here is some information that came up on the National Criminal Justice Reference System, also one I have used many times.
http://www.ncjrs.org/hate_crimes/facts.html
I am not sure about what you mean by " information on light sentences for violent (hate) crimes, and harsh sentences for non-violent crimes." Is she looking for sentencing information on white-collar crimes, discrepancies between sentencing between different types of drugs, etc?
Proquest is a very useful resource in finding articles and journals. also, if you go to a homepage of a university, you might check out their library online. My university library homepage has an extensice online database.