Hate Crimes

There's been a steady and alarming rise in hate crimes as well as domestic terrorism in America and other western countries over the past decades. And the two are related: most instances of domestic terrorism are motivated by hate for marginalized demographics. There's good news though, as the FBI reported a decrease of the number of reported hate crimes.

The only problem is that this news is misleading and hate crimes almost certainly increased. First we must define what a hate crime is. A hate crime is a crime motivated by a strong bias against a social group based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and so on. Now let's look at the numbers in greater detail; in 2021 the FBI saw 7,262 crimes motivated by such bias, which is a decrease from 8,263 incidents in 2020. But that's misleading because in 2021 the conclusions are drawn from a pool of 3,255 fewer law enforcement agencies. Only 11,883 agencies out of 18,812 city, state and municipal law enforcement agencies around the country sent data to the FBI, while in 2020 15,138 agencies sent data.

And it's not that some small and insignificant cities or states failed to send in data on hate crimes; some of the largest cities in America - New York, LA, Chicago - didn't contribute any data. This can be explained, in part, by the fact that in 2021 the FBI transitioned to a completely new database and method of reporting crimes, making possible much deeper and more detailed analyses of the crime numbers. Some law enforcement agencies may have had trouble to start using this new system. On the other hand, they've been given grants to the tune of more than $100,000.000 to assist the move, and the big cities that didn't make it are some of the best funded to begin with.

Also, the police have always severely under-reported hate crimes. Do you remember that mass shooting in Atlanta at spa and massage parlors that left eight people dead, including six people who were Asian during the pandemic when anti-Asian sentiments were at their peak? That wasn't reported as a hate crime. In 2020 some 80 percent of the 15,138 agencies that participated reported no hate crimes at all, zero. Is that realistic? Or do we have to draw the conclusion that some are, let's say hesitant to report hate crimes, or classify crimes as hate crimes? I think it's the latter.

The below linked video explains it well. It's a general strategy or behavior, found on the political right wing, to avoid the reality of systemic bias and social hierarchies. For conservatives the social hierarchies are not social, but natural. This leads to a tendency to classify hate crimes as any other crime, nothing special. Racism, for conservatives, exists only on an individual level; sure, there are racists, but there's no systemic racism. So when progressives say that "Black Lives Matter", conservatives will respond with "All Lives Matter", negating the fact that BLM is a response to the devaluation of black lives. When progressives say that we should combat hate crimes, conservatives will say that all crimes are hate crimes, negating the fact that real hate crimes come from a bias so strong that it becomes dangerous and criminal.

Watch the video and read the NPR article "Researchers say the FBI's statistics on hate crimes across the country are flawed" to dive deeper into this topic; both are worth your time if you think, like I do, this is one of the problems of a society that's gradually descending into a state of fascism.

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