Timeline & Trends Community Reporting Tools

Hate Crimes Data Overview:Challenges & Shortcomings

Anti-Asian discrimination and hate incidents are underreported.

There are barriers to reporting and there are additional challenges to categorizing the incidents that are reported.

First, victims often do not report their experiences and Asian American community members are even less likely to report incidents or to seek help due to language barriers, cultural stigma, lack of awareness, fear of government, and mistrust of law enforcement.

Second, the majority of incidents of hate and discrimination do not meet the legal criteria to be categorized as crimes or hate crimes; and even those that meet the criteria do not always get reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hate crime statistics by local authorities.

Community reporting tools were developed as safe spaces for community members to report hate incidents in their own language. They also provide opportunities to connect community members who report incidents to resources.

Such reporting tools also provide data to better understand the extent and range of hate and discriminatory actions that occur and the data needed to advocate for solutions and policies.

Learn more about Community Reporting Tools

Despite the significant limitations of the available data—some of which are shared here—the data still illustrate the recent rise in hate-related attacks committed against Asian Americans.

The data from the different sources are not meant to be compared, but rather to visually display the occurrence and spread of anti-Asian hate incidents even with their nuances, complexities, and limitations.

Anti-Asian hate crime reported to the police in 16 of America's largest cities and counties rose 164% in the first quarter of 2021 in comparison to the first quarter of 2020.

Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism

California State University, San Bernardino

Hate Crimes Statistics Act

-1990-

As mandated by the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, the FBI releases an annual hate crime statistics report. The data are compiled from voluntary reports from local, state, and federal law enforcement organizations. The reports include the number of hate crimes committed by type of crime and victim and perpetrator demographics.

The FBI defines hate crime as a committed criminal offense motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's biases against:

Some jurisdictions fail to report hate crime statistics, while others claim there are no hate crimes in their community.

Christopher Wray, FBI Director

November 2023 Congressional hearing

17 states

do not require reporting hate crimes to the FBI

estimate of hate crimes per year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics

FBI-reported hate crime offenses in 2020

Arkansas, Wyoming, and South Carolina

have no hate crime laws

2020

0% .3% 84.3%

of law enforcement agencies submitted hate crime data

2021

.5% 82.5%

of law enforcement agencies submitted hate crime data

Florida has the lowest percentage of reporting agencies

82.5% .8% 32.8%

(247 out of 757)

Only four states had a 100% reporting rate

Connecticut
Delaware
North Dakota
Vermont

The types of offenses included in FBI hate crimes are theft & larceny, intimidation, destruction of property, murder & manslaughter, and more.

Offense locations include public areas (highways & streets), private residences & properties, public buildings (schools, government buildings), online, and more.

Interact with the data below to see the number of hate crimes against Asian community members reported to the FBI database. The data are provided as numbers and as rates per 100,000 Asian Americans per state which allows the states to be comparable.

Anti-Asian
Anti-NHPI

Nearly 900 anti-Asian bias incidents were reported in the FBI hate crime reports between 2019-2021, making up about 8% of the total incidents of anti-Asian incidents and 3% of total incidents.

nearly 900

anti-Asian bias incidents (2019-2021)

≈ 8%

total anti-Asian incidents (all time)

Over 61% of anti-NHPI bias incidents were reported between 2019-2021, primarily driven by incidents committed against NHPI community members in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington states. There were over 80 incidents reported during 2019-2021.

over 80

anti-NHPI bias incidents (2019-2021)

≈ 61%

total anti-NHPI incidents (all time)

Source: FBI hate crime reports 2019-2021

If California has an Asian American population of over 7 million, how can anti-Asian hate crimes be compared to a state like Wyoming, with an Asian American population just fewer than 10,000?

To make the data comparable from state to state, we look at the rate of anti-Asian hate crimes per 100,000 Asian Americans in each state.

Highest Anti-Asian Bias Offenses

160.95 offenses per 100,000 Asian Americans

Maine

106.1 offenses per 100,000 Asian Americans

Massachusetts

84.62 offenses per 100,000 Asian Americans

Rhode Island

39.91 offenses per 100,000 Asian Americans

National average

21 States

track above average

for anti-Asian hate crimes per 100,000 people