[JURIST] The FBI [official website] released the 2015 Hate Crime Statistics [report materials] on Monday, showing the number of hate crimes reported to police increased by about 6.7 percent last year, led largely by a 67 percent rise in crimes against Muslims. This 2015 release [press release] is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the FBI’s work to compile data about bias-motivated crimes, which began in 1990 following Congress passing the Hate Crimes Statistics Act [text]. In the press release, the FBI urged that its statistics report is “only as good as the information it contains, and increased participation from law enforcement agencies will provide a more complete picture of hate crime in America.” FBI Director James Comey [official profile] said, “[w]e need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our communities and how to stop it.”

In September the FBI reported an increase in violent crime [JURIST report] during 2015 and decrease in property crimes. These statistics released by the FBI support a report by California State University, San Bernardino [JURIST report] that was released in September that found hate crime was on the rise, particularly among Muslims and Arab-Americans. Outside the US, UK prosecutors [JURIST report] have been encouraged to use tougher sentences against hate crimes [BBC report] in response to the nation’s increasingly hostile environment since the EU referendum. Since the middle of June more than 6,000 hate crimes and incidents have been reported to the authorities.