There were 44 hate crimes reported in the state in 2005, down from 59 in 2003 and 2004, according to the FBI report issued Monday. But some critics say the trend says more about lack of accurate reporting than it does a decline in the number of attacks on minority groups.

The report mirrored a decrease in hate crimes nationwide, with about 500 fewer incidents reported last year than in 2004 across the country.

Fraser Nelson, executive director of the Disability Law Center in Salt Lake City, said she can't speak to the report, but she doesn't think the state has ever had an accurate count of incidents. That's because some victims didn't see the importance of reporting their case if nothing could be done about it, she said.

Under the former hate crimes state law, there was little law enforcement could do to prosecute a person who allegedly committed a hate crime. Judges and prosecutors for years had said it was unenforceable.

Nelson is certain the number of hate crime incidents will be higher next year and even higher in 2008 because of the state's amended law. After eight years of debate and compromise, lawmakers in March approved an amended hate crimes bill that asks judges to consider giving criminals longer sentences for offenses likely to spark fear or "community unrest."

The law now encourages victims to pursue justice by reporting a hate crime, she said.

"There's an incentive to recognize it," Nelson said Monday.

The FBI report seeks to track attacks against people based on their race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation or disability. For example, in March 2005, Robby Wayne Baalman and two other men attacked George Stephenson, a black man, as Stephenson rode his bike to work in Salt Lake City. Baalman pleaded guilty and said the attack was part of an initiation into the American Front, a white supremacist group.

It's hard to know how many hate crimes actually occur, said Shuaib Din, a member of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake. Some hate crimes are reported but are not labeled as "hate crimes" because it's hard to prove an act was motivated by hate, he said.

For example, Din said windows have been broken at his mosque a few times, and the police usually report it as an act of violence.

"We can't say it's a hate crime because there's not graffiti or a note to say it was motivated by hate," Din said.

It will always be difficult to track hate crimes because of the crime's "narrow definition," Din said. "There are a lot more ways that hate is expressed, but it's not a crime," he said.

In Utah, about half of the 44 hate crimes reported in 2005 were racially motivated, nine were related to ethnicity and eight religion, according to the data.

The FBI numbers are reported voluntarily by local law enforcement agencies.

The Anti-Defamation League, a leading group opposing anti-Semitism, noted that some large law enforcement agencies and thousands of small police forces did not report data and steps should be taken to gather a more complete picture.

"The fact that New York City and Phoenix did not report hate crime data to the FBI makes the 2005 report clearly incomplete and marks a setback to the progress the Bureau has made in the program," Deborah M. Lauter, ADL's director of Civil Rights, said in a statement.

In Utah, sexual orientation was the basis for six incidents in 2005. Nationally, there were 1,107 crimes resulting from bias against victims' sexual orientation, down from 1,197 the previous year.

But while the trend is positive, crimes motivated by bias toward sexual orientation remains the third-highest cause of a hate crime, said David Stacy, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay and lesbian issues.

"The number of anti-gay hate crimes indicates the need for state and local government to do more to prevent and investigate hate crimes and points out the need for Congress to enact federal legislation," he said.