For ProPublica, Ken Schwencke reports on a poor data system that relies on local law enforcement to voluntarily enter data:

Local law enforcement agencies reported a total of 6,121 hate crimes in 2016 to the FBI, but estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the federal government, pin the number of potential hate crimes at almost 250,000 a year — one indication of the inadequacy of the FBI’s data.

“The current statistics are a complete and utter joke,” said Roy Austin, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s civil rights division. Austin also worked at the White House on data and civil rights and helped develop an open data plan for police data.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Tags: crime, hate, police, ProPublica