The FBI’s 2018 report on hate crimes was released earlier this week. Overall, there’s been relatively little coverage by the media, especially compared to last year when headlines focusing on the “17% increase in hate crimes” made major news. Some cynics might attribute that to the fact that there was no increase in hate crimes this year, and good news rarely makes it on the front page. The limited coverage it did get usually had headlines like this:

• New York Times– “Hate Crime Violence Hits 16 year high, FBI Reports: The Bureau’s annual report showed a significant upswing in violence against Latinos”
• CBS News– “FBI: Hate crime murders hit record in 2018; crimes targeting transgender people soar”
• NPR– “FBI Reports Dip In Hate Crimes, But Rise In Violence”
• CNN– “Hate crimes remain at heightened levels, FBI report finds”

While all these headlines are true, they take a negative narrative. The reality is that there are many different narratives that can be constructed with the recent hate crime data, both positive and negative. I’ll list the full context of statistics, and analyze the potential narratives and context, many of which are missed by media reports. All data comes from the various tables in the 2018 report, compared with the 2017 report when necessary.

If you’d like to learn how to find and analyze this data, check out my video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKzHAaDh8Xs&t=1s

What is a Hate Crime?

The FBI defines hate crimes as:

criminal acts that were motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against the victim’s race/ethnicity/ancestry, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, or sexual orientation, and were committed against persons, property, or society.

Because of the subjective nature of the definition, they further clarify that “only when a law enforcement investigation reveals sufficient evidence to lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that the offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by his or her bias, should an agency report an incident as a hate crime.”

This still leaves it at the discretion of various law enforcement agencies to determine what a hate crime is, and given it’s subjective nature there’s grounds for valid criticism. But given the importance our culture places on the topic, it’s the best measure we have.

Participation Table

Every analysis of FBI hate crimes data should include the number of participating agencies and the population it covers. The FBI report is not a comprehensive measure of the entire US, it’s based on various law enforcement reporting agencies sending in data, which changes each year. This year, the number of reporting agencies actually fell by 110, or .7% (16,149 to 16,039). Some media outlets picked up on this slight drop as a reason for the reduction in hate crimes, but neglected to point out that the population covered actually increased from 306.4 million people to 306.9 million people (a tiny .2% rise).

The population covered is the more relevant metric, as the vast majority of agencies report zero hate crimes. Since the 2018 report includes .2% more people than 2017, we’d expect a .2% rise in hate crimes (not a slight decrease as some outlets suggested). Also note that when media outlets make claims like “violence hits 16 year high” that usually doesn’t factor in increases in reporting population, which can be quite large (67 million more today than in 2003).

Total Hate Crimes

• 2018- 7,120 Incidents
• 2017- 7,175 Incidents

Analysis/Narratives:

• There was a slight drop in hate crimes (.8%). Factoring in the expected rise of .2% for the increased population, there was a 1% drop in hate crimes from the year prior.
• This stops a 3 year rise in hate crimes (beginning towards the end of Obama’s term going into the beginning of Trump’s) suggesting that things are turning around and hate is not becoming more prevalent.
• Hate crimes are essentially unchanged and remain at a several year high.

Victims

By Race/Ethnicity:

• Anti-white- 3% increase (741-762)
• Anti-black- 3% decline (2,013-1,943)
• Anti-Hispanic- 14% increase (427-485)
• Anti-American Indian- 23% decline (251-194)
• Anti-Asian- 13% increase (131-148)
• Anti-Arab- 20% decline (102-82)

Analysis/Narratives:

• Anti-black crimes actually fell slightly, while anti-white crimes rose. However, blacks are still disproportionately victims of hate crimes. They are targeted more than 2 times as often as whites, despite being less than 1/5th the population.
• Anti-Hispanic crimes rose moderately, continuing a several year trend. Part of this would be expected from their population growth, but crimes have risen faster than this would account for. Still, as a minority group they are proportionately less victimized than blacks, American Indians or Asians.
• Asians had an almost identical increase in hate crimes as Hispanics, which was ignored by almost everyone.
• Anti-Arab crimes declined considerably, a positive sign.

By Religion:

• Anti-Jewish- 11% decline (938-835)
• Anti-Christian- 44% decline (185-103)
• Anti-Muslim- 31% decline (273-188)
• Anti-Sikh- 200% increase (20-60)

Analysis/Narratives:

• After a huge (37%) increase in anti-Jewish crimes last year, there was a healthy decline this year, although they remain elevated and are the most targeted religious group.
• Anti-Muslim crimes plunged, which (along with drop in anti-Arab) is seldom reported.
• Anti-Sikh had a notable huge increase for a relatively small population. Considering Muslim and Arab crimes are dropping, it’s perplexing (sometimes they are confused with Muslims) and unclear why they are being targeted, but worth investigating.
• Overall, hate crimes based on religion are down by almost 10%.

By Sexual Orientation:

• Anti-gay- 7% increase (679-726)
• Anti-lesbian- 2% increase (126-129)
• Anti-heterosexual- 47% decline (32-17)

By Gender:

• Anti-male- unchanged (22-22)
• Anti-female- 4% increase (24-25)
• Anti-transgender- 34% increase (106-142)

Analysis/Narratives:

• Anti-transgender crimes are increasing significantly. Some of this would be expected given the growth of the population, but it appears to be rising more than that alone would explain.

Offenders by Race/Ethnicity

• White- 9% increase (3,228-3,511)
• Black- 32% increase (1,217-1,605)
• Hispanic- 18% increase (350-412)
• Asian- 107% increase (46-95)

Note: for those wondering why offenders in all major racial groups increased, yet overall crimes decreased, there’s a category of offender called “unknown race” which declined substantially.

Analysis/Narratives:

• White offenders of hate crimes rose the least of all major groups, and both black and Hispanic offenders increased significantly (this is seldom reported). Note, Hispanic is an ethnic, not racial group, so some Hispanics are white.
• Black offenders continue to commit a disproportional amount of hate crimes.
• Asian offenders spiked dramatically last year (for reasons unclear). This could be noise, given their small numbers, but something to watch in the future.

Offense Type

• Crimes Against Persons- 9% increase (5,084-5,566)
• Murder- 38% increase (15-24)
• Rape- 4% decline (23-22)
• Aggravated Assault- 4% increase (990-1,026)
• Simple Assault- 9% increase (1,745-1,895)
• Crimes Against Property- 15% decline (3,115-2,641)
• Crimes Against Society- 21% increase (238-289)

Analysis/Narratives:

• Crimes against persons did increase from 2017, which was typically highlighted in media reports as “rising violence”, but it wasn’t a substantial increase and it was largely exaggerated.
• Murders spiked, as the CBS headline noted, but this is misleading without context. 11 out of the 24 total murders were from one event, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Considering the low amount of hate crime murders, one event like this can skew the statistics dramatically. When we look at number of incidents, murders are almost identical for each year (12 vs. 13). This also applies to the coverage of anti-Jewish murders, as all of the murders were from the one incident. There were zero anti-Jewish murders in the previous 2 years for reference. It’s a mistake to draw a trend from one incident.
• Despite the large increase in transgender crimes, there were still zero murders and just one rape in that category.
• The decline in crimes against property comes after last year’s large 24% rise. Property crimes are still up compared to 2016. Crimes against “society” have more than tripled since 2016.

Other Notable Findings

• While both whites and blacks committed more transgender hate crimes in 2018, blacks commit them at a vastly higher proportion. In fact, blacks committed more transgender hate crimes (65 vs. 50) despite being less than 1/5th the population. Hispanics are roughly proportionate to whites in transgender crimes. The same applies in regards to anti-gay and lesbian crimes.
• Most of white hate crimes are against blacks. Most of black hate crimes are against whites. Most Hispanic crimes are against blacks. Most Asian crimes are against blacks.
• Two states reported zero hate crimes: Alabama and Wyoming.
• By far the most hate crimes are committed in California (1,222) although there was a slight 4% decline from last year.
• Certain areas of the South remain the safest place for hate crimes, according to FBI statistics. There were only 19 total crimes reported between Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. That’s less than the state of Maine (22) or Vermont (48).
• Texas crimes more than doubled last year to 500, though still remain below many other states given its population. For example, much smaller Massachusetts had 474, Michigan had 495 and New Jersey had 577.
• Florida registered a surprisingly low number (166), less than the District of Columbia (236).
• The most out of whack state, given its population, is Washington. They had an astounding 666 hate crimes, rising from already high levels last year.

Conclusion

Generally, there’s nothing alarming about this report. When there are dozens, if not hundreds, of data points to analyze one can always find worrisome increases to seize on. For example, there was a 63% increase in American Indian hate crimes from 2016-17, but that declined by 23% this year. Given the relatively low numbers of most of these crimes, they can fluctuate quite dramatically year over year.

When viewed in a historical context, current hate crime levels are not unusually high. Compared to 2000, there are 12% fewer hate crimes, and that’s covering more than 70 million people. Even with the population increase, anti-black hate crimes are down 32%, anti-Jewish crimes are down 25% and anti-gay crimes are down 19%. Despite the headlines, we are not living in a more dangerous or “hateful” era.