Press Releases

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), author of the bipartisan Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act and the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, which was signed into law in 2021, today issued the following statement on the FBI’s release of 2024 hate crimes statistics:

“According to the FBI’s release of 2024 hate crimes statistics, only 16,419 agencies out of 18,800 agencies nationwide participated in hate crimes data collection, with 81 percent of agencies reporting zero hate crimes including at least 57 localities with populations of 100,000 or more. The 2024 hate crimes statistics illustrate the urgent need to improve hate crimes reporting across the country and in particular, accurate hate crimes reporting from law enforcement agencies representing cities with populations of 100,000 or more. 

“The jurisdictions that did report hate crimes reported 11,679 offenses, the second-largest total since the FBI started keeping data. Religiously motivated incidents increased by 3.1 percent with 3,096 offenses reported, and of those 69 percent were anti-Jewish incidents. 7,043 of the hate crime offenses reported were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry, and 50.4% of these reported offenses were motivated by anti-Black bias. 

“Accurate and reliable hate crimes data is key to keeping our communities safe and preventing hate crimes from happening. But right now, major gaps in reporting make that hard. I wrote the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act to help address these challenges.

"The lack of credible and complete national hate crimes data collection poses a significant challenge to prevention efforts. Congress must pass the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act to ensure we accurately collect this data and use it effectively in the fight against hate.”