FBI's updated report now shows dramatic rise in hate crimes

Hate crimes against Asian Americans are is rising, according to FBI data.

In a new report with updated data, the FBI reissued a new report that shows hate crimes rising to its second highest level since it began collecting hate crime data in 1990.

Hate crimes in the United States surged 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the majority based on racial, ethnic and ancestral bias, the FBI said on Monday. Most disturbingly,  hate crimes against Asians rose 167%

“Preventing, investigating and prosecuting hate crimes are top priorities for the Justice Department, and reporting is key to each of those priorities.," said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a statement."The FBI’s supplemental report demonstrates our unwavering commitment to work with our state and local partners to increase reporting and provide a more complete picture of hate crimes nationwide."

A flawed report released last year showed a drop in hate crime drawing heavy criticism from civil rights organizations. The FBI admitted that a switch to a new data system meant  52% of the country's jurisdictions, including some large cities and states, did not meet the reporting deadline resulting in lower total numbers nationally.

The updated report which includes data from more jurisdictions, including New York City and Los Angeles, show that reported hate crime incidents rose to 9,065 in 2021 from 8,120 in 2020.

Officials say the top five hate crime categories reported for 2021 were anti-Black, anti-white, anti-gay male, anti-Jewish and anti-Asian.

The bureau said 64.5% of victims in 2021 were targeted because of their race, ethnicity or ancestry bias while 15.9% were targeted because of sexual-orientation bias and 14.1% were targeted because of religious bias.

For its supplemental report, FBI officials said they were able to retroactively include crime data from some of the country's largest cities that had not yet made the switch to the new reporting format.

That meant that some large cities such as Los Angeles and New York City are now included in its hate crime report, which compares trends between 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, Chicago was able to provide two quarters worth of data for the report.

While the NIBRS 2021 hate crime dataset reported 7,262 incidents and 8,673 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity, the supplemental hate crime dataset reports involve 10,840 incidents and 12,411 related offenses. The supplemental reporting figure is higher as it represents a larger population as more agencies were able to submit via the SRS system. (Due to rounding, percentage breakdowns may not add up to 100 percent.) 

The FBI defines hate crime as a criminal offense "motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity."

The bureau’s annual report is widely used by law enforcement, policymakers, experts and community leaders as a broad measure of hate crime in America. 

Victims of Hate Crime Incidents 

• Over 10,500 single-bias incidents involved 12,411 victims.  
  
  • A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that
  • 64.5% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias,
  • 15.9% were targeted because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias,
  • 14.1% were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias,  
  • 3.2% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias,  
  • 1.4% were targeted because of the offenders’ disability bias, and  
  • 1.0% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender bias. 
• There were 310 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 411 victims.  

Offenses by Crime Category 

• Of the 8,327 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in the updated 2021 dataset,  
  • 43.2% were intimidation,  
  • 35.5% were simple assault, and  
  • 20.1% were aggravated assault.  
  • 19 rapes and 18 murders were reported as hate crimes.  
  • The remaining 70 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons were reported in the category of other.  
• Of the 3,817 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 71.2% were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism.  
• 267 additional offenses were classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution, and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.
  

President Biden has made fighting hate crimes, particularly those assaults against Asian Americans, one of his administration's priorities.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has led a concerted effort to gather more accurate data on hate crimes, including more translations services in Asian languages and communications and more outreach and training for law enforcement agencies.

"We are continuing to work with state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to increase the reporting of hate crime statistics to the FBI," says Gupta. "Hate crimes and the devastation they cause communities have no place in this country. The Justice Department is committed to every tool and resource at our disposal to combat bias-motivated violence in all its forms.”

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