New FBI hate crime numbers show nationwide uptick, statewide decline

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The FBI released a supplemental report on hate crimes Monday which show there’s a 12% increase across the country in 2021 compared to the year before.

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In the updated report released Monday, the bureau said that 12,411 individuals were reportedly victims of hate crimes in the year 2021, with close to 65% targeted because of race or ethnicity.

Florida showed a different trend. Hate crimes reported to the FBI continued to drop to 116 in 2021. That compares to 145 five years ago.

“With this supplement to the December report, the number of reported hate crimes across the country is the highest since the creation of the FBI hate crime reporting program in 1990. And we know the reporting is still starkly incomplete. For example, the entire state of Florida has now reported 116 hate crimes -- about the same as the city of Boston,” Michael Lieberman, SPLC’s Senior Policy Counsel on Hate & Extremism, said.

Read: A hate crime lays bare Hawaii’s complicated race relations

A closer look shows the number of reporting Florida agencies to the FBI’s crime statistics also dropped from 655 in 2017 to 485 in 2021. Reporting is currently voluntary and fewer agencies responded after the FBI switched its reporting system.

“Even with this additional reporting, the failure of thousands of police agencies across the country to participate in this report is devastating for the individuals and communities harmed by these crimes and to our ability to understand and prevent them. Accurate, comprehensive national data is integral to addressing the root causes, designing prevention strategies, and providing the needed support to victims and communities. We must do better,” Lieberman said in a statement emailed to Action News Jax.

The supplemental report did add about 3600 hate crimes to the numbers originally released in December.

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The SPLC said it would press to make hate crime data collection mandatory for all 18,000 federal, state, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies.

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