FBI: U.S. hate crimes up slightly

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. hate crimes were up slightly in 2008, with 7,783 incidents and 9,691 victims reported to authorities, the FBI said Monday.

The agency, however, warned in a release the rise over 2007's figure of 7,624 incidents may be due to more local police agencies moving to report hate crimes rather than an actual increase numbers.

The FBI said its statistics indicate 5,542 hate crime offenses were classified as crimes against persons, with intimidation accounting for 48.8 percent of those crimes, simple assaults for 32.1 percent, and aggravated assaults for 18.5 percent.

Seven murders were reported as hate crimes.

Some 51.3 percent of the crime were racially motivated, while 19.5 percent were motivated by religious bias, 16.7 percent stemmed from sexual-orientation bias and 11.5 percent resulted from ethnicity/national origin bias, the FBI said.

Meanwhile, 3,608 offenses were classified as crimes against property -- the majority of which (82.3 percent) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. The remaining 17.7 percent consisted mainly of robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson, officials said.

Of the 6,927 known offenders, 61.1 percent were white, 20.2 percent were black and 11 percent were of an unknown race.