CNN is reporting that the “FBI cites thousands of hate crimes in ‘08″, and indeed it does, but what does that really mean?

Hate crime has been much in the news lately, with an expansive new law put on the books just last month. Today, we’re releasing our latest annual statistics on the extent of bias-fueled crime across the country, which we hope will contribute to the ongoing national dialogue and to public and private efforts to address its underlying causes.

Overall, the 2008 numbers are up slightly—7,783 incidents and 9,691 victims (including individuals, businesses, and institutions) were reported to us by our law enforcement partners across the country. But a note here: our Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program doesn’t report trends in hate crime stats—yearly increases or decreases often occur because the number of agencies who report to us varies from year to year.

You can find much more information in the full report, broken down into categories such as locations, victims, offenders, incidents, and offenses.

Source/Full Story: FBI
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