The United States Justice Department has had a very busy year in 2009. According to federal records, this year saw more cases involving hate crime in since , indicating that there was a drop in hate crimes during the Bush years.

“I was rather shocked to see the downtick in prosecutions of hate crimes,” remarked the Justice Department's head of the civil rights division, Tom Perez.

Though seemingly one of the few good trends to emerge from what many, including myself, see as a failure of a presidency lead by a leader in George W. Bush that was nothing more than a lame duck president, the fact that there were less hate crimes then than there are now only serves to highlight the beliefs of several key democratic figures.

During the Bush years, Democrats were vocal about several inefficiencies in the investigation of hate crime, police misconduct, and housing discriminatory cases as well as employment issues that involve bias.

An investigation launched after President Obama took office showed that the Justice Department under President Bush was mired by improper hiring and personnel choices by those in power.

25 crimes, classified as hate crimes, were filed during what was the majority of President Obama's first year in office. 31 were filed in 2001.