On Monday, the FBI released Hate Crime Statistics, 2020, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program's latest compilation of bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2020 data, submitted by 15,136 law enforcement agencies, provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders and locations of hate crimes.

Law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 7,759 criminal incidents and 10,532 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity. However, the UCR Program does not estimate offenses for the jurisdictions of agencies that did not submit reports.

The amount of hate crimes reported to the FBI increased by about 450 incidents over 2019, according to CNN. That increase coincided with a reduction in agencies reporting hate crimes than in previous years. The report shows 2020 had the highest tally of reported hate crimes since 2008, when 7,783 hate crimes were reported to the FBI.

Attacks targeting Black people rose to 2,755 from 1,930, and the number targeting Asians jumped to 274 from 161. Of the known offenders, more than half were White, according to the FBI.

"These statistics show a rise in hate crimes committed against Black and African-Americans, already the group most often victimized, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "Notably, they show a rise in hate crimes committed against members of the Asian-American Pacific Islander community. This also confirms what we have seen and heard through our work and from our partners."

There were 7,554 single-bias incidents involving 10,528 victims. The percent breakdown of victims (percents may not add up to 100% because of rounding) by bias type shows that 61.9% of victims were targeted because of the offenders race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, 20.5% were victimized because of the offenders sexual-orientation bias, 13.4% were targeted because of the offenders religious bias, 2.5% were targeted because of the offenders gender identity bias, 1% were victimized because of the offenders disability bias, and 0.7% were victimized because of the offenders gender bias.

There were 205 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 333 victims.

The Justice Department and FBI are required by a 1990 federal law called the Hate Crime Statistics Act to publish an annual report on hate crime statistics. The annual report serves as the most comprehensive look at hate crime across the country.

Law enforcement agencies are not required to submit their data to the FBI for its annual crime report. There are more than 18,000 agencies in the United States and more than 3,000 did not submit their crime statistics in 2020, which may result in an undercount.

Of the 7,426 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2020, 53.4% were for intimidation, 27.6% were for simple assault, and 18.1% were for aggravated assault. There were 22 murders and 19 rapes reported as hate crimes. The remaining 27 hate crime offenses were reported in the category of "other."

Of the 2,913 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, most (76.4%) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses accounted for the remaining 23.6% of crimes against property.

There were 193 additional offenses classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents societys prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.

In the UCR Program, the term "known offender" does not imply that the suspects identity is known; rather, the term indicates that some aspect of the suspect was identified, thus distinguishing the suspect from an unknown offender. Law enforcement agencies specify the number of offenders and, when possible, the race of the offender or offenders as a group. Beginning in 2013, law enforcement agencies began reporting whether suspects were juveniles or adults, as well as the suspects ethnicity when possible.

Of the 6,431 known offenders indicating some aspect of the suspect was identified, distinguishing the suspect from an unknown offender 55.2% were White and 20.2% were Black or African American. Other races accounted for the remaining known offenders although the race was unknown for 16.4% of offenders.

Of the 5,915 known offenders for whom ages were known, 89.1% were 18 years of age or older.

In Michigan, there were 161 reported cases of anti-Black or African American hate crimes and 30 cases of anti-gay male hate crimes. There were also 56 cases of anti-white hate crimes in the state last year. There was a total of 377 hate crimes in 2020 in the state.

Of the 453 offenses last year related to hate crimes, 189 involved intimidation, while 109 were simple assault and 52 were aggravated assault. Destruction/damage/vandalism of property accounted for another 45.

The offender's ethnicity was unknown in 289 of the 319 reports. Of the 319 reports, 206 offenders were reported as white while 66 were reported as black in Michigan in 2020. There were 136 incidents reported in a home and 56 occurred on a highway, alley, street or sidewalk.

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Hate crimes at highest rate in more than a decade, per FBI - Midland Daily News