Statistics released Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed a slight decline in the total number of hate crimes in 2011 when compared with the previous year, although the number of hate crimes based on the victim’s sexual orientation continued to increase.
According to the FBI, 6,222 criminal incidents involving 7,254 offenses were reported in 2011 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability.
Among those figures, law enforcement agencies reported 1,508 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias in 2011, compared to 1,470 offenses in 2010 — the total accounts for 20.8 of the hate crimes reported.
Of these offenses:
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- 57.8 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias;
- 28.4 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias;
- 11.1 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias;
- 1.5 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias;
- 1.1 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.;
Of the 4,623 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2011, intimidation accounted for 45.6 percent, simple assaults for 34.5 percent, and aggravated assaults for 19.4 percent. Four murders and seven forcible rapes were reported as hate crimes.
Nearly 60 percent of the people who allegedly committed hate crimes were white. Some 20 percent were black.
The FBI has been collecting information on hate crimes for more than two decades. The highest-recorded number of hate crimes was in 2001, when 9,730 such crimes were reported.