Hate crimes harm not only their immediate victims but also the wider targeted community. They send a message that members of particular groups are vulnerable and create an environment of fear. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program collects data on hate crime incidents reported to law enforcement under its Hate Crime Statistics Data Collection. Participation in data collection is voluntary for nonfederal law enforcement agencies. The number of hate crimes reported annually increased from 7,181 in 2018 to 11,643 in 2022—the largest number of reported incidents since the UCR began collecting hate crime data in 1991.

Moreover, this count of reported hate crime incidents substantially understates the true volume. Multiple factors contribute to this underrepresentation, including the underreporting of incidents to law enforcement and the lack of recognition and recording of incidents as bias motivated. Between 2010 and 2019, the National Crime Victimization Survey found that around 44 percent of hate crime victimizations were reported to police. A Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that in 2019, 86 percent of law enforcement agencies who participated in the UCR’s hate crimes data collection reported that no hate crimes occurred in their jurisdiction.

The underreporting and under-identification of hate crimes limits our ability to prevent and combat these incidents, reduces the likelihood of justice for survivors, and can perpetuate strained relationships between law enforcement and impacted communities. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has funded millions of dollars in research to address critical gaps in knowledge and provide evidence-informed recommendations to improve reporting, identifying, and responding to hate crimes.

Police Chief Magazine recently published an article on “Using Research to Improve Hate Crime Reporting and Identification” that highlights findings and recommendations from three NIJ-supported research studies. The article identifies key factors that influence whether members of the Latino and LGBTQ+ communities report hate crimes to formal authorities, identifies challenges law enforcement faces in identifying and recording incidents as bias motivated, and offers research-based recommendations.

Kaitlyn Sill, Ph.D.
Senior Social Science Analyst
National Institute of Justice

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