By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com
WASHINGTON — Hate apparently never goes out of style.
Hate crimes against blacks and religious groups increased in 2008 over the previous year, and hate crimes overall rose by 2 percent to 7,783 incidents, according to hate crime statistics released by the FBI on Monday. The number of victims totalled 9,691.
Still, the numbers should be carefully weighed. The FBI noted that its Uniform Crime Reporting Program doesn’t report trends in this area because the number of law enforcement agencies that report hate crimes varies each year. In 2008, 2,145 police agencies reported hate crimes, compared with 2,025 last year.
Reported hate crimes against blacks jumped by 8 percent; against gays 3 percent and biased incidents based on religion were up 9 percent this year. It said 2/3 of the religion based hate crimes involved anti-Semitism
