FBI Report: US Hate Crimes Hit 20-Year High in 2021
The FBI initially issued its annual hate crimes report in December showing 7,262 incidents for 2021.
But the report excluded data from about 4,000 law enforcement agencies, including large police departments in New York, Chicago and California.
The FBI said it has since received enough additional data from police departments around the country to provide a more complete picture of hate crimes in the United States.
In a statement, the FBI said its supplemental report shows that hate crimes jumped 11.6% last year, from 8,120 to 9,065.
The 9,065-figure would represent a 20-year high and the second highest level since the FBI started publishing hate crime data in 1990, according to Brian Levin, director of the center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino.
But Levin noted that the figure in the FBI press release varies significantly from the actual supplemental report, which shows 10,530 “single bias incidents” in 2021, representing a modern record for hate crimes.
VOA has reached out to the FBI for clarification on the apparent discrepancy but has not received a response yet.
As in previous years, Blacks were the most frequent target of hate crimes in 2021. Anti-white came in second, followed by anti-gay men, anti-Jewish and anti-Asian.
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.
The FBI has been reporting hate crime stats since 1990, using a data collection system that was created in the 1920s.
But the bureau switched to a more modern data collection system in 2021. Many police agencies have been slow to adopt the mechanism, leading to the release of an incomplete report in December.
In 2021, 11,171 law enforcement agencies out of nearly 18,000 nationally completed the transition to the new reporting system known as NIBRS.
An FBI official told reporters on a news call that “agency participation for 2022 has already surpassed the numbers in 2021.”