Hate crimes in the United States have jumped to an alarming level in 2021, largely driven by crimes based on race and ethnicity, according to a supplemental report released by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
The report noted that 12,411 individuals became victims of hate crimes in 2021—with roughly 65 percent reportedly targeted because of their race or ethnicity, while nearly 16 percent were targeted for their sexual orientation and 14 percent for their religion.
About half of the religion cases targeted Jewish people, a finding that comes amid rising anti-Semitism, said Jill Garvey, chief of staff at the Western States Center.
The data shortfall in the previous report was largely due to changes in how police must report their data to the FBI. To ensure a more complete picture, agency officials went back and allowed large departments to report under the previous system.
Garvey said the FBI’s updated report, as well as the initial report that missed data, underscores the need for improving record-keeping on reported hate crimes.
The agency’s updated statistics now include data from large departments that was missing, and the total is the highest level in decades, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.
“We are in a unique and disturbing era where hate crimes overall stay elevated for longer punctuated by broken records,” Levin said.
The FBI also classified more than 3,800 offenses as hate crimes against property, of which roughly 71 percent were acts of destruction, damage, and vandalism. An additional 267 offenses were classified as crimes against society.
Hate crime cases are often challenging for officials to investigate because of proving that a defendant was primarily motivated by a victim’s race or religion as opposed to other factors frequently invoked, such as drug addiction or mental illness.
Responding to the FBI’s updated statistics for the year 2021, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said the top priority for the Department of Justice is “preventing, investigating, and prosecuting hate crimes.”
“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,” he added. “Hate crimes and the devastation they cause communities have no place in this country.”