INDIANA – The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program defines a hate crime as a committed criminal offense that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias(es) against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.
The FBI says it received more than 7,000 reports of hate crimes last year. Although that’s the third highest number of the last decade, the number of agencies reporting hate crimes significantly dropped.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday said that hate crimes in the U.S. fell in 2021, but acknowledged that the data was far less complete than in years past because thousands of police departments didn’t report their numbers to the federal government.
The 2021 FBI Hate Crime statistics for Indiana are based on data received from 198 of 344 law enforcement agencies in the state.
Sixty percent of the incidents in Indiana were based on race, ethnicity, or ancestry, followed by religion.
.
The top category of bias was “anti-black or African American,” the report says.
Twenty-four incidents of bias were based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
