Hate Crimes in U.S. Rose to Highest Level in More Than a Decade in 2019
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual hate crime statistics report for 2019. According to the report, hate crimes in the United States rose to their highest level in more than a decade last year, while more murders motivated by hate were recorded than ever before. The FBI collected data on 7,314 criminal incidents motivated by bias toward race or ethnicity or gender identity in 2019. It was the third straight year the metric surpassed 7,100 incidents and it was the highest number since the FBI reported 7,783 incidents in 2008. Experts say the FBI data likely undercounts the number of hate crimes in America, both because many victims fail to report incidents and local agencies are not required to report hate crime data to the FBI.