FBI releases hate crime statistics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released 2020 Hate Crime Statistics compiled by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program — detailing offenses, victims, offenders and locations of hate crimes.

Data was collected via submissions from 15,136 law enforcement agencies outlining incident reports involving 7,759 criminal incidents and 10,532 related offenses motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity.

Per the FBI, the UCR Program does not estimate offenses for the jurisdictions of law enforcement agencies that do not submit reports.

The report determined there were 7,554 single-bias incidents involving 10,528 victims, with 61.9 percent of victims targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias while 20.5 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias; 13.4 percent were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias; 2.5 percent were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias; 1 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ disability bias; and 0.7 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ gender bias. There were 205 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 333 victims.

“Preventing and responding to hate crimes and hate incidents is one of the Justice Department’s highest priorities,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2020 demonstrates the urgent need for a comprehensive response. Last year saw a 6.1 percent increase in hate crime reports, and in particular, hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity and ancestry, and by gender identity.”

Garland said the statistics showed an increase in hate crimes committed against Black and African-Americans while also reflecting a rise in hate crimes committed against members of the Asian-American Pacific Islander community.