Aug 5, 2025 - Politics & Policy

Hate crimes hit second largest record in 2024: FBI

Russell Contreras

A bearded man with tattoos holds a rainbow-striped flag that says "ABIDE NO HATRED" outside Dapper Dog tattoo shop with a large window and red brick wall. — Charlie Garrett, co-owner of the Dapper Dog Tattoo shop in Annapolis, Maryland, holds the flag that was torn down. The shop was the target of a hate crime after a Naval Academy graduate and Marine veteran ripped a pride flag off its front awning. Photo: Jeffrey F. Bill/Capital Gazette/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Hate crimes in the United States last year hit their second-largest total since the FBI started keeping data, in a sign that bias-motivated crimes aren't subsiding, according to new numbers.

The big picture: Although overall hate crimes decreased by 1.5% in 2024 from the year prior, advocates say the high numbers show Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans and LGBTQ+ residents are still targets for bias attacks.

By the numbers: Law enforcement agencies reported 11,679 criminal cases of hate crime last year, the FBI said Tuesday.

In 2023, the nation saw a record high of 11,862 hate crime cases, according to an Axios analysis of FBI data.
In addition, the FBI reported 13,683 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.

Zoom in: More than half of hate crimes involved attacks involving race or ethnicity, the FBI Crime Data Explorer database showed.

Black Americans were the most targeted group, followed by Jewish Americans, then gay men, according to the numbers.
Around 17% of all hate crimes involved sexual orientations.
Sikhs remain the third most-targeted religious group behind the Jewish and Muslim communities.

Caveat: Just over 16,000 agencies participated in the hate crime collection with the FBI, with a population coverage of 95.1% of the U.S. population.

That gap could mean more hate crimes in the U.S. are going unreported, advocates say.

What they're saying: "The record-high number of anti-Jewish hate crime incidents tracked by the FBI in 2024 is consistent with (Anti-Defamation League)'s reporting," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.

"We're facing a crisis of hate and extremism that threatens all of us and the core of our democracy," Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick said.

"Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Black Americans, Jewish Americans, the Latino community, the LGBTQ community, immigrants and others have long sounded the alarm — this violence is not new, it simply remains unaddressed," Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry said.

Between the lines: Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes appeared to have leveled off slightly last year, but the numbers are still alarming, analyst Brian Levin told Axios.

However, it appears that anti-Jewish hate crimes are still near or around record levels, he said.
Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hate crimes tend to rise during conflicts in the Middle East, he said.

What we're watching: Advocates are pushing Congress to pass the proposed Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act (IRPHA)

The bipartisan bill would compel local law enforcement agencies to make this dataset more inclusive and provide for additional education around hate crimes and bias incidents.

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Hate crimes hit second largest record in 2024: FBI

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