Hate crimes on rise as murders set record
Most driven by racial bias in Illinois, with incidents concentrated on Chicago
A float in Chicago’s Pride Parade: an FBI study finds hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity were concentrated last year in Chicago. (Shutterstock)
By Ted Cox
Hate crimes are on the rise across the nation, with a record number of murders driven by bias committed last year.
The FBI released its annual report on “2019 Hate Crime Statistics” this week, finding that last year, for the third year in a row, U.S. hate crimes topped 7,100, with the most reported since 2008.
The 51 murders committed in hate crimes last year set a record with almost half, 23, resulting from a single incident — an attack by a 21-year-old man on a Walmart in a Hispanic neighborhood in El Paso, Texas.
According to the FBI report: “Law-enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity” last year.
The New York Times pointedly reported: “The death toll in the El Paso attack more than doubled that of 2018’s deadliest hate-motivated crime, the mass shooting targeting Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.”
The FBI said most attacks were driven by racism, following by religious bias: “A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that 57.6 percent of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias; 20.1 percent were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias; 16.7 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias; 2.7 percent were targeted because of the offenders’ gender-identity bias; 2 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ disability bias; and 0.9 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ gender bias.”
African Americans remained the most frequent victims of hate crimes, although the percentage of crimes committed against that racial group fell to the lowest level since the FBI began compiling data. The Times reported that “the overall increase was fueled by a rise in attacks, in particular, against Hispanics and Jews,” as “hate crimes directed at Latinos rose almost 9 percent, to 527 incidents last year from 485 incidents in 2018.” At the same time, “The FBI reported 953 anti-Semitic hate crimes last year, a 14 percent increase from the previous year and the most since 2008, according to a report by California State University, San Bernardino,” extrapolating the FBI data.
The FBI reported: “Of the 5,512 hate-crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2019, 40 percent were for intimidation, 36.7 percent were for simple assault, and 21 percent were for aggravated assault. Fifty-one (51) murders; 30 rapes; and three offenses of human trafficking (commercial sex acts) were reported as hate crimes.” Almost 3,000 hate crimes were committed against property.
The majority of offenders, 52.5 percent, were White, with 24 percent African American.
Illinois saw similar breakdowns, with 34 hate crimes last year driven by race, ethnicity, or ancestry, nine by religious bias, and 23 by either sexual orientation or gender identity. Most of those incidents across the board were concentrated in Chicago, where 18 hate crimes involved race, five concerned religion, and 11 were driven by homophobia, with all six Illinois hate crimes involving transgender people taking place in the city.
The FBI and other interested groups emphasized the data are probably the tip of the iceberg, as law-enforcement agencies are not compelled by law to report hate crimes to the bureau. The Southern Poverty Law Center responded that “it’s important to note that, because of the nature of hate-crime reporting, the FBI’s annual report vastly understates the real level of hate crimes in the country.”
According to the Times, “The SPLC noted that the rise in hate crimes in recent years has come as the number of white-supremacy groups has surged. According to data collected by the SPLC, the number of white-nationalist groups grew 55 percent between 2017 and 2019.” The Times drew attention to “the upward trend in bias-motivated crimes during the Trump era,” particularly pointing to the El Paso shooting.
Nikki Singh of the Sikh Coalition told National Public Radio: "Even as deadly hate crimes increase, fewer law-enforcement agencies are electing to report data to the FBI. Especially given the dangerously divisive political climate of the past four years, we should be reckoning with the problem of hate in America — not continuing to sweep it under the rug."
The Times quoted Professor Brian Levin of California State University, San Bernardino, as saying, “Politics plays a role.” A previous FBI study two years ago found hate crimes on the increase in the first year of the Trump administration.
Michael Jensen, of the University of Maryland, told NPF that data show that hate crimes typically cluster around “big political moments.” And there's typically an increase during election years, as in the last previous high set in 2008.
“We saw a big spike when Obama was elected, we saw a big spike when Trump was elected. And we've seen several other big spikes in the years since Trump was elected, around some of the things that he's said and other events,” Jensen said. “Unfortunately, if you're a betting person, you're going to bet that we're going to see another spike here in the next six weeks or so.”