The number of hate crimes reported to the FBI increased by 17% in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to the FBI's 2017 Hate Crime Report. 

In 2017, law enforcement agencies reported 7,175 hate crimes, compared to 6,121 reported in 2016. 59.6% of the single-bias incidents involved race/ethnicity/ancestry. Religion was the bias in 20.6% of the cases, and sexual orientation was the bias in 15.8%. In addition to the 7,106 single-bias incidents, there were 69 multiple-bias hate crimes reported. 

There were 7 incidents of hate crimes reported in Bakersfield. 4 involved bias against race/ethnicity/ancestry and 3 involved bias against sexual orientation. Taft reported 1 race/ethnicity/ancestry hate crime incident, and the County of Kern reported 2 race/ethnicity/ancestry hate crime incidents. There were no reports for Delano, Tehachapi, or CSUB.

The reports come as part of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program in which agencies can either submit crime data to a state UCR program or directly to the FBI. The number of agencies reporting hate crime data saw an increase in 2017, with 1,000 additional agencies submitted criminal data.