The FBI [official website] released [press release] the 2016 Hate Crime Statistics [materials] on Monday revealing 7,321 recorded criminal offenses motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender and gender identity in comparison to 6,885 [press release] of such bias-motivated offenses in the previous year.

According to the report, there were 6,063 single-bias incidents involving 7,509 victims of which approximately 59 percent were targeted because of racial, ethnic and/or ancestral bias; 21 percent because of religious bias, 17 percent on sexual orientation bias, 2 percent on gender identity bias, 1 percent on disability bias, and 0.5 percent on gender bias. Additionally there were 58 multiple-bias hate crime incidents involving 106 victims.

More specifically, approximately 50 percent of the crimes were related to racial bias against Blacks, while 20 percent represented bias against Whites, 11 percent represented bias against Hispanics/Latinos, and 7 percent represented bias against American Indian and Asian groups. As for religious bias, 54 percent represented bias against Jews while 25 percent represented bias against Muslims. 63 percent of the crimes were related to bias against homosexual males, while 22 percent represented bias against homosexuals in general, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. 26 percent of the crimes were connected to bias against females, while 10 percent of the crimes were connected bias against males.

The report also reveals that approximately 46 percent of the 5,770 known offenders were White, 26 percent Black, and 7.7 percent were of multiple racial backgrounds. The race was unknown for about 18 percent of these known offenders. Additionally, of 4,222 known offenders, approximately 26 percent were reported as “Not Hispanic or Latino,” 8 percent as “Hispanic or Latino,” while ethnicity was largely unknown for about 64 percent of the offenders. Also, approximately 84 percent of 4,100 known offenders were 18 years of age or older.

In terms of location, the report reveals that approximately 27 percent of the incidents occurred at or near residences or homes; 18 percent near highways, roads, alleys, streets or sidewalks; 10 percent near schools or colleges; 6 percent near parking lots and garages; and 4 percent near churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Approximately 22 percent of the hate crime incidents took place at other or multiple locations while location was unknown for approximately 13 percent of the hate crime incidents.

The report was compiled by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program using reports submitted by 15,254 law enforcement agencies, and provides information about offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. The 2015 report, representing the 25th anniversary report of the FBI in this context, released last year itself reported an approximate 7 percent [JURIST report] increase in hate crimes from the prior year, of which 67 percent were connected to crimes against Muslims.