The NYPD is adopting a more comprehensive method for reporting hate crimes in the city, following a Gothamist report in which hate crime experts criticized a recent change in the department’s reporting method.
Going forward, the department will publicly disclose both the number of hate crimes that are reported and those that are confirmed by investigators. In March, the department said it would only report confirmed hate crimes. Prior to that, the department had released information on hate crimes that had been reported and were under review by police.
When Gothamist reported on the shift to the more restrictive policy, hate crime experts said it was a blow to transparency and could potentially make it appear that hate crimes in the city were dropping when they actually weren’t. In January, police reported a 152% spike in reported hate crimes in the city compared to the same period in 2025.
Three professors who study hate crimes suggested the department should publish both confirmed hate crimes and those that had been reported to the department. One of the experts, Professor Brendan Lantz, said an actual hate crime could go unconfirmed for a number of reasons, including an alleged victim refusing to cooperate.
Days later, City Council Speaker Julie Menin cited the Gothamist story at a City Council hearing and questioned Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch about the new reporting method.
Tisch defended the move, saying she wanted to provide the public with “meaningful data” and the numbers the NYPD previously reported were "not a reflection of any reality."
She added that the prior reporting method was “conflicting, wrong and confusing.”
When the department released crime figures for the month of March last week, it noted that it will now be publishing both sets of numbers. The department said the new method will be more transparent than reporting only those that had been confirmed.
“The disclosure of both sets of numbers will enhance transparency and reflects best practice in connection with hate crime reporting,” the department said in a press release.
Tisch said at a press conference that reporting both sets of numbers is the “gold standard for reporting on hate crimes.”
“We've done this in consultation with experts in the field,” she added.
The NYPD said confirmed hate crimes for the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025 increased by more than 11 percent. A majority of confirmed hate crimes were motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, the department said.
In March, there were a total of 73 reported hate crimes, 55 of which were eventually confirmed by the department.
Lantz, a hate crimes expert at Florida State University, said reporting both sets of data provides important context and increases transparency. He said agencies that are transparent with their hate crime figures tend to report a lot of the crimes.
“I always emphasize that the agencies that do it well, they look like they have a lot of hate crime,” he said.
