Hate crimes in US cities increased in 2022 from the previous year. For the fourth consecutive year, said violent actions and aggressions based on bias marked the upward trend in a pandemic that has also taken its toll with the loss of human life.
The latest 4.7 percent increase in hate crimes occurred in the first half of 2022, according to the latest study of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism ?CSHE, for its acronym in English? from California State University, San Bernardino.
Other recent findings include rising violence, elongated all-time hate crime spikes, mass homicides, changes in group targeting, and numerous records that have been broken since 1991.
The new 2022 data comes from a CSHE sample of 15 large US cities, including 4 in the state of California—Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, and Irvine—and comes after increases double-digit percentage rates in each of the past two years.
Thus, last year, it was the third time since national registries began that hate crimes increased for four consecutive years.
Black, Jewish, gay and Latino people were the most frequent targets in the first half of 2022, the study noted.
Notably, in 2021 registrations were reduced in the largest cities and states, and also in a wave of anti-Asian violence.
In the largest 2021 national data set, covering 196 million people in 18 states and the District of Columbia, CSHE found a cumulative increase of 21 percent to 8,896 records, more than the FBI's 2020 total for across the US, and the highest since the 2001 record of 9,730, fueled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Nine states broke annual records in 2021 and 14 of the 19 jurisdictions surveyed increased.
The largest cities rose the most, 29 percent, in another 2021 data set of 52 large US cities, covering 35 of the nation's 50 largest.
The 10 largest US cities increased even more: 39 percent, while reaching a record total of 1,664 hate crimes. Smaller cities posted lower, double-digit percentage increases.
For 2022, the CSHE found increases of about 5 percent in two separate surveys of police data for the first quarter and first half of 2022.
Hate crimes against people of African descent and Jews grew, while those against Asians, since the 2021 records, rose to historically high levels.
In CSHE's latest, albeit smaller, preliminary data set of 15 US cities, overall hate crime rose 4.7 percent in the first half of this year, with Los Angeles flat, but Chicago down. an increase of 25 percent and New York with 13 percent higher than the previous year. Meanwhile, the first quarter survey of 23 cities showed an increase of 5.2 percent.
In 2022, the cities surveyed generally had the same groups represented, with the Afro-descendant community almost always in the top three for attacks, but in different orders that often correspond to demographics or local tensions.
In all cities with data except Chicago, transgender crimes, while very low in number, have experienced increases as residents of this sector of the community grapple with a hostile legislative and social landscape.
In Los Angeles, the study details, these hate crimes increased from 6 to 13 from one year to the next until May, while in New York they increased from two to four.
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ, for its acronym in English), examining crime in general, found that aggravated assaults and robberies increased 4 and 19 percent in the first half of 2022 in major cities in the United States , with homicides declining by one percent, but still well above 2019 levels.
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library.
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