Hate crimes in US surged 11.6% in 2021

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hate crimes surged by 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the most frequent ones fueled by racial, ethnic and ancestral bias, the FBI said on Monday.

The release on Monday of the FBI’s new analysis marks the first time the bureau has been able to confidently report on national trends in hate crimes since it transitioned to a new data collection system.

Uniform crime data released by the FBI in October 2022 contained gaps, with only 52% of U.S. law enforcement agencies reporting a full 12 months of 2021 information.

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.

FBI officials said they typically track the 130 most populous cities across 16 states to identify statistically significant trends. Out of the 130 cities, 96 were able to provide the FBI with crime summary data for the new hate crimes report.

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

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Mark Porter)