Hate Crimes On The Rise And It’s Worse Than The Stats Show

Welcome

PITTSBURGH, PA - OCTOBER 29: A memorial for victims of the mass shooting that killed 11 people and wounded 6 at the Tree Of Life Synagogue on October 29, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Eleven people were killed and six more wounded in the mass shooting that police say was fueled by antisemitism. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

In 2017, hate crime in America had its biggest jump in a decade, according to the F.B.I.  From 2016 to 2017 the number of hate-related crimes jumped 17 percent.  The majority of the crimes, 60 percent, were due to race.  The jump is certainly not unexpected with the nationalist sentiment inside the White House.  But the dramatic increase really doesn’t tell the whole story.  Here’s what’s important to know.  It comes from the excellent Daily 202 column in The Washington Post.

 

— “Of the hate crimes that likely occur each year in our country, only about 1 percent are reported in official federal statistics,” estimates Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute.

— One especially startling figure: The FBI’s new report shows anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 37 percent in 2017.“The new FBI data comes less than a month after the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history — a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 and wounded six,” Devlin Barrett notes. “The suspect in that attack has been charged with dozens of federal hate crimes, and that one incident alone accounted for nearly as many hate crime killings as were recorded all of last year in the United States: 15.”

This is not a regional problem.  Hate is nationwide. The Southern Poverty Law Center has produced a map that shows how widespread hate has become.

The SPLC reports there are now 953 hate groups operating across the country.