This meme originates from commentator Jordan Leland, with over 1,500 shares. It was also widely shared by other large pages like Occupy Democrats, with over 11,800 shares alone. This meme, echoing the frequent media narrative, claims that hate crimes increased dramatically since Trump won the election, particularly hate crimes against minorities.

Update: the FBI data for 2017 is now out, and the updated analysis is here.

No FBI Data For 2017

The meme cites “FBI uniform data” as its source. It was posted on October 28, 2018, which would leave the viewer to assume “since the election” includes data close to the present. However, the FBI hasn’t released hate crime data for 2017 yet (as of November 10)! It’s tentatively scheduled for sometime in the fall of 2018, but without this data it’s impossible to say whether or not hate crimes have increased since the election. The latest data available is from 2016, which only includes a month and a half after the election. It leaves out all of Trump’s first year, not to mention 2018 which won’t be released until next year. Ironically, this meme isn’t based on any data from when Trump was actually president.

The source of these numbers appears to be an analysis of FBI data for the two weeks following the 2016 election. The amount of hate crimes rose during this period, but two weeks is an extremely short period of time to measure a trend, and we don’t know yet if this spike was based on short-lived emotion related to the election, or continued to prevail once Trump took office. The meme also conveniently leaves out that anti-white hate crimes rose 62% during this period, which would run contrary to their narrative.

For now, this meme’s claims should be considered unfounded. Until the 2017 data comes in, there is no evidence to support it. The best we can do now is compare 2016 statistics to 2015. While Obama was in office both of these years, the “rise of Trump” could be said to begin in 2016. This is when his rhetoric, campaign and the election atmosphere intensified. If the narrative that hate crimes rapidly increased with the arrival of Trump are true, we should be able to see this trend in the statistics.

Comparing 2016 and 2015 Stats

The following analysis comes from FBI hate crime statistics from 2016 and 2015. First, a quick intro to hate crime statistics. The FBI defines a hate crime as one

“motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and were committed against persons, property, or society.”

Since the motivation of the offender is subjective and often difficult to discern a “hate crime” from a non-hate crime, the FBI includes only events which they determine has sufficient evidence of this bias. Additionally, their data is obtained from local law enforcement agencies voluntarily releasing their information to the FBI. While there is participation by most agencies (15,254 in 2016), it doesn’t include all areas of the country.

Total Incidents:

In 2015 there were 5,850 hate crimes. This rose to 6,121 in 2016, a 4.6% increase. This seems small, considering the intensity of the 2016 campaign and media attention in focusing on hateful rhetoric. Also of note, 88% of agencies reported zero hate crime incidents. Nevertheless, it’s factual to say hate crimes rose in the era of Trump, and many outlets would report just that and little more. But, digging deeper into the statistics reveals many interesting findings.

By Race and Religion:

A common assumption when mentioning “hate crimes” is that they are only or primarily committed against certain minority oppressed groups by certain majority oppressor classes. When it’s mentioned that “hate crimes increased under Trump”, one is led to assume that this includes only or primarily certain groups. This is not the case, as virtually every racial and religious group are victims of hate crimes. Here’s how things changed with race-based hate crimes from 2015-16:

• Anti-white- Increased 17% (613 to 720)
• Anti-black- Decreased <1% (1,745 to 1,739, this is essentially unchanged)
• Anti-Hispanic- Increased 15% (299 to 344)

It should be noted that anti-black hate crimes still occur at over 2 times the rate of white ones, but the trends are not what one would expect from this meme or media coverage. Ironically, it was anti-white hate crimes that increased most.

What about religion?

• Anti-Semitic- Increased 3% (664-684)
• Anti-Muslim- Increased 19% (257-304)
• Anti-Christian- Decreased 8% (153-141)

Here, the narrative holds somewhat. Out of all major religions, Muslims saw the greatest increase in hate crimes, although still nowhere near what the meme suggests. Anti-Semitic crimes were hardly changed, although they make up the bulk of religious hate crimes. (Note: Hindus actually saw the greatest percentage increase in hate crimes (100%, from 5 to 10), and atheists saw a 300% increase (2 to 6), but the total incidents were so small here percentages aren’t useful.)

Who Committed the Hate Crimes?

Analyzing the victims is just one half of the equation, what about the offenders? Again, the results here run counter to the mainstream narrative, and what the meme suggests. From 2015-16, here are how things changed:

• White Offenders- Decreased by 3% (2,761 to 2,680)
• Black Offenders- Increased by 18% (1,129 to 1,3331)
• Hispanic Offenders- Increased by 40% (182 to 254)

Clearly, most hate crimes are still committed by whites, although by percentage of population blacks commit more. The trend, however, fell slightly for whites in the year of Trump, rose appreciably for blacks and skyrocketed for Hispanics. This appears to be virtually unreported by the media.

Types of Crimes

There are a wide variety of offenses that constitute hate crimes, ranging from minor vandalism to murder. Here is how they broadly break down from 2015-16:

• Assaults– Increase of 1.5% (2,138 to 2,171)
• Intimidation- Increase of 5% (1,495 to 1,577)
• Theft-Robbery/Arson- Decrease of 5% (574 to 547)
• Destruction/Vandalism- Increase of 13% (1,698 to 1,913)

Destruction and vandalism accounted for the vast majority of the increases in hate crimes (215 out of the 271 total increase in incidents). The more violent offenses had little increase, or even decreased.

Events like vandalism are still serious crimes, but often it’s hard to know who the offender was, or their intention. For example, in 2017 at least 10 hate crimes on campuses alone were found out to be hoaxes. In 2018, a series of bomb threats to Jewish centers, over 150 in the US alone, were found out to originate with an Israeli teen, who was Jewish. Yet, these incidents were still included in the widely disseminated ADL report that anti-Semitic incidents rose 57% last year. The FBI appears to be more careful in their assessment of hate crimes, but events which result in no injuries or conflict like vandalism must be taken with a bit of skepticism. The good news is that hate crimes involving violent acts don’t appear to be rising with any significance.

Overall Trend

While hate crimes rose slightly from 2015-16 (and 2014-15), they are still quite low historically. Crimes peaked at 9,730 in 2001, likely as a response to 9/11. However, even compared to 2000, hate crimes were down over 24%, and that’s despite a population increase of more than 40 million. They are down 21% from 2008. It remains to be seen what happens with the 2017 and subsequent years, but for now the rise seems to be quite insignificant given historical context.

 

Conclusion

As with anything regarding statistics, it’s easy to mislead and create different narratives. For example, it’s factual to say that when Trump came on the political scene hate crimes rose. Or that anti-Muslim crimes rose. But, it’s also factual to say that hate crimes against whites increased more than any other racial group, and black hate crimes decreased. Or, that hate crimes by white offenders decreased, while black and Hispanic offenders dramatically increased. All of these narratives are factual and could be used to support different agendas, but you’ve likely only heard of certain ones.

Regardless of the many factual narratives that could be created, this meme has no foundation. There are no hate crime increases even approaching their numbers. We’ll have to wait for the 2017 data to be released, but looking at the change in 2015-16 shows little cause for alarm.