By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Incidents of violent crime in the United States fell by 3% last year, while the number of hate crimes rose, the FBI said in an annual report released on Monday.

The report collects crime data from more than 16,000 state and local law enforcement agencies who collectively represent about 85% of the FBI’s crime data reporting program.

The FBI said that murder and non-negligent manslaughter was down about 11.6% while reports of rape decreased by about 9.4%.

But the number of hate crimes reported rose by 2% to 11,862 from 11,634, the report said.

Hate crimes have been on the rise in the United States for several years. The FBI last year reported a surge of 11.6% in 2021 from 2020, with the largest number of incidents spurred by bias against Black people.

Monday’s report on violent crime trends runs counter to claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival Kamala Harris for her record on crime and safety and claimed without evidence that migrants who cross the border illegally are responsible for a rising tide of violent crime.

Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center looked at crime in the United States using two different sets of data from the Department of Justice.

It found that violent crime in the United States fell 49% between 1993 and 2022. However, violent crime rose sharply during the pandemic, with the murder rate spiking to its largest single year increase on record.

Trump has said that if he’s reelected, he would institute the death penalty for human traffickers and drug dealers, and he does not believe federal statistics like the FBI’s report showing that violent crime trends are declining.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Mark Porter)

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