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Hate Crimes Held Steady Overall, but Increased Against Latinos in 2018

The FBI’s annual report saw a drop of less than 1 percent in hate crimes. But for Latinos, those figures are up.

Hate crimes held relatively consistent in the U.S. in 2018, but surged against Latinos, according to the FBI’s annual hate-crime report, released Tuesday. The report, which collected data from just over half the country’s police departments, logged 7,120 hate crimes in 2018, reflecting a less-than-1 percent decrease from 2018. Race-based crimes against Latinos increased from 2017—the third consecutive year they rose, the report found. Race-based hate crimes accounted for 59.6 percent of all incidents, followed by religion-based incidents at 18.7 percent. Of religious-based hate crimes, nearly 57 percent were directed at Jews, while 14.6 percent targeted Muslims

The FBI’s statistics are an imprecise measurement of hate crimes in the U.S. The report is drawn from hate crimes voluntarily reported by the country’s law-enforcement departments. More than 16,000 departments turned over their hate-crime data to the feds for the report, but nearly half of the country’s police departments did not release their hate-crime figures. The inconsistent reporting means the FBI has no hate crimes logged for the entire state of Alabama, the Los Angeles Times noted.