WASHINGTON — An FBI report released on Sunday, Nov. 13, revealed that in 2015, hate crimes increased 6.8 percent from the previous year.

Crimes against Muslims saw the highest jump, a 67 percent increase from 2014, totaling 257 incidents compared with 154 in 2014.

The number of hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 was the second highest on record. The number of assaults reached its peak with 481 hate crimes in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.

Anti-Muslim harrassment totaled 4.4 percent of all hate crimes.

The largest number of incidents was against Blacks, totaling 1,745 in 2015, up from 1,621 crimes in 2014 – a jump of 7.7 percent.

Anti-gender/transgender crimes increased by 16.3 percent, from 98 incidents in 2014 to 114 hate crimes in 2015.

However, the number of hate crimes based on sexual orientation declined 3.4 percent, with the number dropping to 1,053 in 2015. These incidents totaled 18 percent of all hate crimes.

Despite the increased number of such cases, there are differences in data regarding how many hate crimes actually occurred.

Data from the FBI suggest there have been fewer than 6,000 hate crimes within the past decade. However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ victimization phone survey reported just under 300,000 incidents.

Not all states are reporting every hate crime that occurs, according to the Huffington Post. Only 41 of 203 hate crimes recorded in Maryland were reported in FBI data.

Other problems include programs not correctly distinguishing whether an incident should be counted as criminal or non-criminal, as some advocacy groups have an inaccurate vetting processing and wrongly assume a non-criminal act was a hate crime or vice versa, according to the Huffington Post.