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Of the more than 17,000 police agencies across the country, 12,600 provided data on incidents.

“The number of hate crime incidents increasing [nationally] may be due to a significant increase in the number of police agencies reporting numbers,” said Robin Toma, executive director of the L.A. County Human Relations Commission, which tracks hate crimes in the county. Nationwide, Toma said, many agencies don’t participate in the gathering of hate crime data.

Most notable was the jurisdiction encompassing Jena, La., where the appearance of nooses last year raised racial tensions and the beating of white students by black youths garnered heavy publicity. Despite these events, authorities there do not participate in the annual hate crime count. In California however, “hate crime reporting is a part of the fabric of law enforcement work,” Toma said.

According to the FBI’s national figures, race was the motivating factor for 4,000 hate crimes last year, with 2,640 incidents specifically targeting blacks.

The study found that 51.8% of all hate crimes in 2006 were motived by race, 18.9% by religion, 15.5% by sexual orientation, 12.7% by ethnicity or national origin and 1% by physical or mental disability.

tina.macias@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com