US hate crimes highest in over a decade: FBI

Released on Monday, the FBI's annual Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report said that there were 7,314 hate crimes in 2019, up from 7,120 the year before and the highest since 7,783 in 2008, the BBC reported.

According to the report, there was nearly a 7 per cent increase in religion-based hate crime, with a 14 per cent spike in incidents targeting Jews or Jewish institutions.

It also found hate crimes against the Latino community rose 8.7 per cent from 485 in 2018 to 527 in 2019, the highest figure since 2010.

The report said that African-Americans were targets of hate crimes more than any others in the US.

However, the FBI said the number of hate crimes against African-Americans dropped slightly to 1,930, from 1,943.

Of all 4,930 victims of reported hate crimes motivated by race or ethnicity, 48.5 per cent were "victims of crimes motivated by offenders' anti-Black or African American bias", compared with 15.7 per cent as "victims of anti-White bias", 14.1 per cent as "victims of anti-Hispanic or Latino bias" and 4.4 per cent of "anti-Asian bias", the BBC quoted the report as saying.

It further said that hate-motivated murders also surged to a record high in 2019, with 51 deaths, which was more than double the 2018 total.