NEW YORK (AP) — Anti-gay attacks in the United States dropped 4 percent last year, but the assaults were more violent and led to more hospitalizations, an advocacy group says.

A report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released Tuesday showed the number of attacks dropped from 2,665 in 1997 to 2,552 in 1998.

However, the number of victims requiring inpatient hospitalization more than doubled, from 53 in 1997 to 110 last year.

The group also reported a 71 percent rise in assaults and attempted assaults with guns. Incidents in which bats, clubs and other blunt objects were used rose by 47 percent.

"What this may be indicating is that perpetrators are getting bolder, and their actions are becoming more premeditated, since ... you have to make a decision to leave your house with a baseball bat," said Richard Haymes, executive director of the Anti-Violence Project.

The group highlighted several cases, in particular the murder last fall of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. The slaying prompted calls for legislative change nationally and in Wyoming, one of eight states without a hate crimes law.

Russell Henderson pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping and felony murder in the case. Co-defendant Aaron McKinney still faces a murder trial.

The report covered recorded incidents of anti-gay violence in 16 regions across the country. It came on the same day that President Clinton asked Congress to expand federal hate crimes law to include offenses based on sexual orientation.

Haymes applauded Clinton's proposal.

"In New York state, for example, there are 502 jurisdictions that could report bias crimes, and currently only 35 do because it's not mandatory," Haymes said. "Multiply that kind of underreporting nationally." Although the severity of anti-gay violence rose last year, the report said, police response "did not rise as much in consequence" in terms of bias crime classification, arrests and processing of complaints.

The report suggested a national study of hate-motivated violence, harsher penalties at the state level for hate crimes and federal funding for law enforcement to states that pass hate crime bills.

The report also recommended increasing the hiring of gay police officers and establishing anti-bias units in every police force.

The coalition is a voluntary network of 26 community-based organizations.