FBI Releases 2007 Hate Crime Statistics

The FBI yesterday released hate crime statistics for 2007. (FBI press release). Today's Washington Post reports on the data, indicating that the 7,624 incidents reflected a 1.3% drop from 2006. However the FBI does not include year-to-year comparisons in its release because the number of law enforcement agencies participating varies each year. 18.4% of the single bias incidents in 2007 involved religious bias. That is a decline of 4.2% from the previous year. The FBI's website contains links to the full data. 1400 incidents involving 1628 victims were religiously motivated. 969 or those incidents were anti-Jewish, 115 were anti-Islamic, 61 were anti-Catholic, 57 were anti-Protestant, 6 were anti-Atheist/Agnosticism. According to an ADL press release on the data, despite the overall decrease, anti-Jewish incidents increased slightly from 2006 when 967 were reported.