The FBI yesterday released its latest data on hate crimes. Hate Crimes Statistics 2009 reports that there were 6,604 criminal incidents involving 7,789 bias-motivated offenses. This is a drop of 15% from the year before and the lowest number reported in at least a decade. However there are signifcant variances in the number of agencies participating and reporting from year to year. (Huffington Post.) Of the 6,598 single-bias incidents in the latest report, 19.7% were motivated by religious bias. Of these 1303 incidents motivated by religious bias, 931 were anti-Jewish, 107 were anti-Islamic, 51 were anti-Catholic, 38 were anti-Protestant and 10 were anti-Atheist/ Agnostic. (Table 1.) In 2008, there were 1606 hate crimes motivated by religious bias reported. (See prior posting.)
An ADL release welcoming the drop in hate crimes expressed disappointment that more than 60 cities with over 100,000 population did not submit data.
