WASHINGTON — The F.B.I.
reported Monday that attacks against American Muslims rose last year,
driving an overall increase in hate crime against all groups.
The data,
which is the most comprehensive look at hate crime nationwide, expanded
on previous findings by researchers and outside monitors, who have
noted an alarming rise in some types of crimes tied to the vitriol of
this year’s presidential campaign and the aftermath of terrorist attacks at home and abroad since 2015.
That trend appears to have spiked
in just the last week, with civil rights groups and news organizations
reporting dozens of verbal or physical assaults on minorities and others
that appear to have been fueled by divisions over the election.
In
its report on Monday, the F.B.I. cataloged a total of 5,818 hate crimes
in 2015 — a rise of about 6 percent over the previous year — including
assaults, bombings, threats, and property destruction against
minorities, women, gays and others.
Attacks
against Muslim Americans saw the biggest surge. There were 257 reports
of assaults, attacks on mosques and other hate crimes against Muslims
last year, a jump of about 67 percent over 2014. It was the highest
total since 2001, when more than 480 attacks occurred in the aftermath
of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Attacks against transgender people also sharply increased.
Blacks
were the most frequent victims of hate crimes based on race, while Jews
were the most frequent victims based on religion, according to the
F.B.I. data. But the increases in attacks on these groups were smaller
than the rise in attacks against Muslims and transgender people.
Over
all, 59 percent of the hate crimes that the F.B.I. recorded were based
on the victims’ race, ethnicity or ancestry. Religious bias accounted
for about 20 percent of all attacks, and about 18 percent of attacks
were based on sexual orientation.
Law
enforcement officials acknowledge that the statistics give an
incomplete picture because many local agencies still have a spotty
record of reporting hate crimes, 26 years after Congress directed the
Justice Department to begin collecting the data.
“We
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,”
James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, said Monday. The F.B.I. regards the
prosecution of hate crimes under federal jurisdiction as the top
priority of its civil rights branch.
Since
the election, hate crime monitors like the Southern Poverty Law Center
have reported a rash of verbal or physical abuse targeting minorities
and others at schools, mosques and elsewhere.
Some supporters of President-elect Donald J. Trump, however, say they too have been victimized.
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