The FBI on Monday released a hate crimes report for 2021 that it admits is incomplete and which, critics say, vastly undercounts bigotry-based attacks on Blacks, Jews, Asians and members of the LGBTQ community.
Even so, the 7,262 hate crime incidents tallied in the report is the third-highest number reported in a decade and just a thousand shy of the 8,263 incidents recorded in 2020, according to bureau statistics.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said the reason for the apparent undercount is that the FBI has implemented a new procedure for police departments to report crimes of all kinds to it called the national incident-based reporting system, or NIBRS — and many of those departments have not yet started working with the program.
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"The Justice Department continues to work with the nation’s law enforcement agencies to increase the reporting of hate crime statistics to the FBI to ensure we have the data to help accurately identify and prevent hate crimes," she said.