Hate Crimes Reach ‘Shocking’ 12-Year High

The number of hate crimes recorded in 2020 rose to the highest level in 12 years, with attacks on Black and Asian people driving the surge, according to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The 7,759 hate crimes tallied last year represent a six percent jump from 2019 and the biggest increase since 2008, when the FBI recorded 7,783 hate crimes. Data indicates that attacks, which rose for the sixth time in the past seven years, increasingly targeted people of color:

Attacks targeting Black people rose from 1,930 to 2,755, and the number targeting Asian people jumped from 158 to 274, the data showed.

“These hate crimes and other bias-related incidents instill fear across entire communities and undermine the principles upon which our democracy stands,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“All people in this country should be able to live without fear of being attacked or harassed because of where they are from, what they look like, whom they love or how they worship.”

The FBI categorized the crimes by “bias motivation,” finding that nearly 62 percent of victims were targeted because of the offender’s race. Around 20.5 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias, 13.4 percent were targeted because of the offender’s religious bias, 2.5 percent were targeted because of the offender’s gender identity bias,  one percent were victimized because of the offender’s disability bias and around 0.7 percent were victimized because of the offenders’ gender bias.

Attacks targeting Jewish people totaled 676, representing a drop from the 953 attacks recorded in 2019. Also prominent were attacks against gay men (649), Latino people (507) and transgender people (196). Attacks classified as “anti-white” totaled 773.

Congress mandates the FBI collect hate-crime data annually based on reports from local law enforcement agencies. The number of agencies that participated in that effort in 2020 fell for at least the second consecutive year — to 15,136, which is 422 fewer than in 2019. Of agencies that did participate, most reported no hate crimes.

Since March 2021, at Garland’s direction, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has developed and implemented new strategies to counter the recent rise in hate crimes. Those include pursuing hate crimes prosecutions, appointing a hate crimes coordinator and elevating hate crimes to the FBI’s highest-level national threat priority.

The Department also held regional conferences with over 100 law enforcement agencies to “help local police agencies better understand federal civil rights and hate crimes laws,” according to the DOJ.

But following the release of the FBI report, congressional Democrats and civil rights advocates said the findings cover only a fraction of the country’s hate crimes, attributing the “undercount” to local police, who are poorly trained in how to identify and catalogue hate crimes and lack sufficient resources or interest in investigating them, Democrats argue.

“While the numbers in this report are shocking, we know that they are not even close to the complete picture,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, told The Washington Post.

Stop AAPI Hate, a grass-roots group based in California, reported 6,603 hate incidents against Asian people from March 2020 through March 2021. According to that data, which was collected through self-reporting portals online, about 65 percent of incidents involved verbal harassment and 12.6 percent involved physical assault.

Amid protests for racial justice and a prolonged public health crisis, the rise in attacks has also highlighted disagreements over how to most effectively reduce hate crimes. While some politicians and Americans advocate bolstering law enforcement, which they say will facilitate the identification and prosecution of attackers, others argue that an approach focused on criminalization merely accelerates mass incarceration and fails to invest in affected communities.

Scholars Jason Wu and James McMaster encapsulate this argument: “Rather than pouring more resources into criminalization,” they write, “Asian Americans should instead push for more investment in life-affirming, grassroots services, and organizations dedicated to serving the Asian Americans who are most vulnerable to interpersonal and structural violence.”

The DOJ, in contrast, has promised to award grants of up to $300,000 to state, local and tribal law enforcement and prosecution agencies who work with community-based partners to conduct outreach, education, investigations and the prosecution of hate crimes.

To access the FBI hate crimes data, click here.

Eva Herscowitz is a TCR Justice Reporting intern.