The FBI’s hate crime statistics are essential, but the flaws must be fixed

Last month, the FBI released the 2023 report of hate crime statistics, providing a flawed but important snapshot of hate violence in the U.S.

Under the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, the FBI is required to compile hate crime data from more than 18,000 federal, state, university, city and tribal law enforcement authorities and publish an annual report. The data, released ahead of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate Crimes Awareness Month campaign in October, provides an opportunity to not only examine the prevalence of hate crimes in our country, but how to improve hate crime data collection.

The 2023 report documented 11,862 hate crime incidents – the highest ever recorded, including the highest number of crimes directed against people because of their religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. Race-based crimes were most numerous, a constant since the report’s inception in 1991.

The report also has been plagued by inconsistent reporting and significant gaps since 1991. It’s apparent when this data is compared with the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey, which surveys people and households about criminal victimization. It recently estimated about 250,000 hate crimes each year between 2005 and 2019.

Clearly, the FBI’s numbers capture only a small fraction of hate crimes.

We need better data. Studies have shown that better reporting can deter such violence. Better data will mean better allocation of police resources – preventing crimes, reassuring victims and advancing trust and positive police-community relations. A large city that consistently does not report data – or affirmatively reports zero hate crimes, as did Orlando, Florida, and El Paso, Texas, among others – does not inspire confidence that it is ready to address hate violence.

Obstacles to reporting

Reporting hate crime data to the FBI is voluntary, which means local pressures can discourage reporting. Some city and university leaders believe that accurate data reporting can hurt tourism or enrollment. But false or incomplete reporting compounds the problem. If communities targeted by hate violence – including immigrants, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easterners, South Asians and people with limited English proficiency – do not feel safe reporting it, do not trust the police, or believe that reporting will not make a difference, police cannot address these crimes, jeopardizing everyone’s safety.

One welcome development in 2023 was a significant increase in the number of law enforcement agencies reporting data – 16,009 – after five straight years of declining participation. However, more than 2,000 jurisdictions did not report any data, and 80% of those that did report data affirmatively reported zero hate crimes. That figure includes about 60 cities over 100,000 in population.

Recommendations

Here’s how to improve reporting:

• Congress should condition federal funding (SPLC Action Fund) for law enforcement agencies serving populations over 100,000 on credible hate crime reporting. It can also be conditioned on significant community hate crime public education and awareness initiatives.
• FBI offices should communicate directly with local law enforcement agencies that are substantially underreporting hate crimes. Local agencies must be encouraged to increase their participation.
• The Justice Department should continue and expand its United Against Hate Initiative through which every U.S. attorney has promoted comprehensive hate crime reporting for cities in their jurisdictions.

However, preventing hate crimes is better than counting them. We cannot legislate, regulate, tabulate or prosecute hate and extremism out of existence. We must do much more to address systemic racism, fund programs that build community resiliency against hate and empower adults to help steer young people from extremism.

Picture at top: The FBI's report for 2023 documented 11,862 hate crimes, but the report captures only a small fraction of such incidents. (Credit: SPLC)