Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh groups say FBI data undercounts bias

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(RNS) — Three dozen organizations — including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Sikh Coalition and the Union for Reform Judaism — have come out against the FBI’s 2026 Hate Crimes report, raising concerns about incomplete and unreliable data.

In a statement shared exclusively with Religion News Service, 35 organizations contested the agency’s finding that hate crimes were on the decline, pointing to flawed methodology and an incomplete dataset. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting report , released in August, indicates the number of hate crimes reported to the agency dropped by 7% between 2024 and 2025.

“We don’t want people to just run the hate crimes numbers. We want there to be a more complete story of what’s actually threatening our communities,” said Benjamin Suarato, director of advocacy and public affairs at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which led the initiative. “Our safety is very much linked to the safety of other communities.”

In their statement, the groups wrote that the decline isn’t “synonymous with safety” and raised…