Last week the Justice Department opened a federal hate crimes investigation into what led to the stabbing death of 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume and the serious injuries to his mother, Hanaan Shahin, in Illinois. 

Authorities linked the stabbing death and wounding of the boy’s mother to the war between Israel and Hamas. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland warned that the incident would raise fears among Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities about hate-fueled violence. But he said the department would “use every legal authority at our disposal to bring justice to those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate.” 

Recently released data from the FBI show that reported numbers of hate crimes motivated by bias against race, religion or sexual orientation for some groups of people were on the rise in 2022. 

FBI:Murders and rapes dropped in 2022, most hate crimes were targeted to Black and/or Jewish individuals

Are hate crimes on the rise? 

Law enforcement agencies reported 11,643 incidents of hate crimes in 2022 motivated by bias against race, religion or sexual orientation, according to the FBI. While the number of hate crime incidents is up by 7% from 2021, the spike in incidents is partially due to more law enforcement agencies reporting their data. 

• Incidents of crimes motivated by religion rose to 2,044 in 2022. 
• Within the country’s 10 largest cities, the number of reported hate crimes rose even more – 22% from 2021 to 2022, making last year the second consecutive year they hit a record high. 
• Anti-Black and anti-Jewish hate crimes were the most commonly reported type of bias. Anti-Black incidents occurred 3,424 times and anti-Jewish incidents occurred 1,124 times.

Hate crime facts:Hate crimes in big cities hit record high for second year in a row, new data shows

Where are hate crimes taking place? 

More than 3,000 hate crime incidents took place in a home/residence in 2022—the most common location.

The second most-common location was a highway, road, alley, street, or sidewalk, according to FBI data. 

Hate crime facts:Over 7,000 hate crimes were reported to the FBI in 2021. Here's why that data is flawed.

What to know about hate crime data

There are more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S., and it's not mandatory for state, local and tribal agencies to submit data on hate crimes. In 2022, 14,660 of 18,888participating law enforcement agencies in the U.S. submitted data in the country that year. That's a 77% participation rate.

The percentage of agencies contributing hate crime data was 93% in 2020. The rate of participation decreased to about 65% in 2021, the FBI said, attributing the decline to a nationwide transition to a different reporting system. That means it's impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions about hate crime trends year-over-year, according to the FBI.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino said the FBI's 2021 hate crime data release is not representative of the actual hate crime trend in the U.S. which was up in 2021. "The FBI's hate crime data release is so severely hampered by a decline in participating agencies," said Levin.

• According to the FBI, law enforcement agencies determine if an incident is a hate crime by the following:
  • The responding officer identifies if there may be an indication of bias.
  • A second-level officer reviews the facts and decides whether to report the incident as a hate crime.