A revised report from the FBI, which now includes vital data from the nation’s largest cities, has found that hate crimes rose by almost 12% in 2021.
The FBI report was released Monday, and it shows that there were 9,065 criminal offenses in 2021, up 11.6% from 2020, when there were 8,120.
The FBI defines a hate crime as a “committed criminal offense which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
Monday’s supplemental report follows a preliminary report released in December that was heavily criticized for its accounting of hate crimes, as incidents from New York, Los Angeles, and some numbers from Chicago were not initially included.
In the updated report, data shows that Black people were the most frequently targeted victims, more than any other racial group. In total, the FBI found there were nearly 4,000 Black victims of hate crimes in 2021.
When it comes to the most targeted group by faith, Jews were singled out the most, with the report finding there were 869 victims.
As for who was responsible for the hate crimes, the data shows that more than 52% of the 9,606 known offenders were white.
Part of the reason for the lack of data in the initial report is the FBI’s new National Incident-Based Crime Reporting System, as some law enforcement agencies were slow to start contributing their data.
After collecting the final pieces of data, the supplemental report added information from an additional 3,000 law enforcement agencies that protect a combined population of nearly 87 million people.
The Associate Attorney General, Vanita Gupta, shared in the FBI’s release that the bureau is continuing to build its relationships with state and local partners to “provide a more complete picture of hate crimes nationwide.”
“We will not stop here: 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,” Gupta said. “Hate crimes and the devastation they cause communities have no place in this country.”
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