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Resolved: Hate Crime is Not a Significant Problem in the US
I put forward the resolution above for debate, along the lines of an “Intelligence Squared” program. I’m going to start by taking the “For” position, meaning that I will argue in favor of the resolution.
Here are my calculations, generally following the format of an Anti-Defamation League press release issued on November 12, except that I am accurately and dispassionately reporting the actual data. As we’ll see below, the ADL chose a different approach.
In its annual Hate Crime Statistics Act report (the Hate Crime Report), the FBI found that total hate crimes decreased in 2018. The agency reported 7,120 total hate crimes in 2018, compared to 7,175 in 2017, a slight decrease of 0.7%. Anti-Semitic hate crimes decreased 10.9%, from 938 in 2017 to 835 in 2018. Total reported hate crimes motivated by religion decreased 9.2% (1,564 to 1,419), and total reported hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry decreased 2.0% (4,131 to 4,047).
To put these figures in perspective, the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 2018 reported a total of 8,402,881 crimes. The Hate Crime Report includes several categories of crime that are not included in the UCR, such as simple assault, intimidation, arson, and vandalism. The UCR reports four categories of violent crime — murder/non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery — and three categories of property crime — burglary, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft. All of these categories are also reported in the Hate Crime Report.
Applying the UCR categories to the 2018 Hate Crime Report results in a total of 1,204 reported violent hate crimes, and a total of 1,707 reported violent and property crimes motivated by bias, compared to 1,206,836 violent crimes and 8,402,881 total crimes reported in the UCR. Violent hate crime constituted less than 1 in 1,000 violent crimes reported by the FBI, and hate crime constituted 0.02% of total violent and property crime in the 7 categories reported in the UCR.
The FBI reported 40 total violent anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2018, representing 0.0033% of total violent crime in the US, or about 1 in 30,000 violent crimes.
Obviously, every crime is, well, a crime, and every violent crime is a very serious offense. These figures, however, indicate that hate crime in general, and violent hate crime in particular, is a tiny proportion of overall crime. If violent hate crime is less than 1 in 1,000 of the overall problem of violent crime, there is little reason to focus on it.
Hate crime, of course, should be investigated and prosecuted, just like all other crime. I simply see no reason to focus on one-tenth of one percent of the problem of violent crime.
Another important point is that overall crime rates are down, quite significantly, in the US. Thus, hate crime is an almost imperceptible proportion of a crime problem that is substantially improving. According to the 2018 UCR report, the violent crime rate (per 100,000) is down from 523.0 in 1999 to 368.9 in 2018, and the property crime rate (per 100,000) is down from 3,743.6 to 2,199.5. That’s a decline of 29.5% in the violent crime rate and a decline of 41.2% in the property crime rate.
I now turn to the ADL’s press release of November 12. I have begun by focusing (a bit) on reported anti-Semitic hate crime, because I was motivated to look into the issue by the recent claims of a serious increase in anti-Semitic crime in the aftermath of the recent, terrible attacks against a kosher grocery in Jersey City and a Hanukkah celebration outside New York City. I should emphasize that it is possible that there has been a very recent increase in anti-Semitic violent crime, particularly in the NYC area, but this claim is not yet supported by any meaningful data.
I should also emphasize that the misleading reporting of hate crime is not confined to the ADL or to the general discussion on anti-Semitic crime, but regularly extends to claims of hate crime based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other religious categories (such as anti-Muslim crime). But the ADL has just issued a dubious press release on the issue, so I’m going to pick on them as an example. The ADL stated (link here).
ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today called on lawmakers and law enforcement authorities to take action to address the deeply disturbing climate of hate in the United States after newly released FBI data showed that Jews and Jewish institutions were the overwhelming target of religion-based hate crimes last year – as they have been every year since 1991.
In its annual Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) report, the FBI found that total hate crimes decreased slightly in 2018 after three consecutive years of increases. The agency reported 7,120 total hate crimes in 2018, compared to 7,175 in 2017. While religion-based hate crimes decreased by eight percent from 2017, nearly 60 percent of hate crime attacks were targeted against Jews and Jewish institutions in 2018.
This is an astonishingly misleading report. Hate crime is down. Hate crime motivated by religion is down. Anti-Semitic hate crime is down. Further, even if hate crime were up, it is a tiny proportion of total serious crime, about 0.01% of violent crime. Yet the ADL would have us believe that there is — to quote Bethany Mandel’s post earlier this week — a “slow moving pogrom.” This is entirely unsupported by the evidence. The same applies to all other categories of reported hate crime.
I do not want to blame Bethany for her concern. I would think that, like the rest of us, she is getting her information from the media generally, influenced by misleading sources like the ADL.
I think that we are being misled. Peddled a false narrative. I should coin a phrase for it — how does “fake news” sound to you?
Back to the ADL press release. How does the ADL paint such a misleading picture? Well, they assert, somewhat accurately, that “60 percent of hate crime attacks were targeted against Jews and Jewish institutions in 2018.” This stated percentage is wrong — anti-Semitic hate crime was only 11.7% of total reported hate crime in the 2018 Hate Crime Report (835 out of 7,120), though it was about 60% (actually 58.8%) of reported hate crime motivated by religion. But hate crime motivated by religion was only 20% of total reported hate crime (1,419 out of 7,120).
As discussed at the outset, the Hate Crime Report includes many categories of crime that are not included in the overall annual UCR figures, presumably because they are much more minor crimes (simple assault, intimidation, and vandalism) or very rare (arson). Of the 7,120 hate crimes reported in the UCR, only 1,707 — 24.0% — were in categories included in the UCR.
So here’s how you go about dramatically overstating hate crime in general and, as to the ADL press release, anti-Semitic hate crime in particular. First, include a bunch of categories of crime that are, frankly, not considered important enough to be included in the typical crime statistics reported in the UCR. This increases the number of reported hate crimes by 317%. Second, report the percentage of the (rather inflated) number of hate crimes motivated by religion that are anti-Semitic, rounding up to a 60% figure.
Here are the figures for selected types of “hate crimes,” using the data in the Hate Crime Report but limiting it to the categories of serious crime included in the UCR — murder/non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft.
Total crimes in UCR categories: 8,420,881
Total hate crimes in UCR categories: 1,707 — 0.02% of the total, or 1 in 4,923 serious crimes
Total racial/ethnic hate crimes in UCR categories: 1,041 — 0.01% of the total, or 1 in 8,071 serious crimes
Total sexual orientation-related hate crimes in UCR categories: 352 — 0.004% of the total, or 1 in 23,871 serious crimes
Total religious hate crimes in UCR categories: 170 — 0.002% of the total, or 1 in 49,428 serious crimes
Total anti-Semitic hate crimes in UCR categories: 46 — 0.0006% of the total, or 1 in 182,671 serious crimes.
I do not think that these are the best figures to use. I report them because the total number of hate crimes in the UCR categories is the largest number reported in a way that can be compared to overall crime.
I think that it is more meaningful to evaluate violent hate crime, and put these crimes in perspective in relation to the total number of violent crimes reported in the UCR. Remember that the violent crime category consists of murder/non-negligent manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. Here are the figures for 2018:
Total violent crime: 1,206,836
Total racial/ethnic violent hate crime: 744 — 0.06% of the total, or 1 in 1,622 violent crimes
Total sexual orientation-related violent hate crime: 285 — 0.02% of the total, or 1 in 4,234 violent crimes
Total religious violent hate crime: 87 — 0.007% of the total, or 1 in 13,871 violent crimes
Total anti-Semitic violent hate crime: 40 — 0.003% of the total, or 1 in 30,170 violent crimes
Based on this data, I submit that we can conclude that there is not a significant problem of hate crime in the US.
There is one fact that I have not yet reported. Violent anti-Semitic hate crime increased substantially from 2017 to 2018 — up 233%, from 12 to 40. The number of reported anti-Semitic murders was 0 in 2015, 0 in 2016, 0 in 2017, and 11 in 2018. That tragic figure of 11 in 2018 is the result of the single, heinous attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The attack also wounded six people (four police officers, I think), so there may have been other hate crimes such as aggravated assault charged in connection with this crime, which may (or may not) account for an additional portion of the overall increase in violent anti-Semitic hate crime in 2018.
Focusing on what is generally considered the most serious of all crime, murder, the Hate Crime Report does not indicate a significant problem, either in 2018 or other years. In this discussion, I’ll use “murder” to refer to both murder and non-negligent manslaughter reported in the FBI statistics. Of course, any murder is extremely serious, but the number of hate-motivated murders is tiny when compared to the total number of murders. From 2015 to 2018, the average number of reported murders was about 16,700 per year, a total of 66,804. Over this four-year period, the number of reported hate-crime murders was:
All hate-motivated murder: 66 (over 4 years) — 0.1% of all murders, or 1 in 1,012 murders
Race-motivated murder: 37 (over 4 years) — 0.06% of all murders, or 1 in 1,806 murders
Sexual orientation-motivated murder: 7 (over 4 years) — 0.01% of all murders, or 1 in 9,543 murders
Religion-motivated murder: 17 (over 4 years) — 0.025% of all murders, or 1 in 3,930 murders
Anti-Semitic murder: 11 (over 4 years) — 0.017% of all murders, or 1 in 6,073 murders
These figures include both the terrible 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue attack (which killed 11 Jewish worshipers) and the terrible 2015 Charleston church attack (which killed 9 black worshipers).
Other than the Tree of Life attack, there were no reported anti-Semitic murders. The other six anti-religious murders over these four years were four Muslims in 2015, one Sikh in 2017, and one “Other Religion” in 2018. Of the 37 racially motivated murders, 21 victims were black (including the 9 in Charleston), 14 were white, and one was Hispanic.
For all of the media reports of danger to LGBT individuals, there were only seven reported hate-motivated murders over four years motivated by sexual orientation (1.75 per year), and zero (yes, zero) motivated by gender identity.
According to the National Weather Service (here), lightning kills an average of 49 Americans each year. That’s about four times the number of annual hate-motivated murders detailed in the Hate Crime Report. Quite literally, you’re more likely to be killed by lightning.
This is the best available evidence, I think, but I am concerned about the reliability of the data regarding reported hate crimes. The data may be underinclusive, and therefore the figures discussed above understated, as the FBI Hate Crime Report relies on reporting by local law enforcement, which may or may not be accurate or reliable. However, there may also be false reports.
There is a fine article today at National Review by Kevin Williamson, titled “Hoax Politics” (here), addressing the issue. In addition to an incisive and pointed criticism of many specific hate-crime hoaxes, in fine Williamson style, he reports on a study by a Kentucky State professor named Wilfred Reilly, who found that fewer than a third of the hate crimes that he studied were legitimate. Jason Reilly (no relation, probably) detailed Prof. Reilly’s study in a WSJ article (reproduced here at the Manhattan Institute site), reporting that Prof. Reilly compiled a database of 346 hate-crime allegations and determined that less than a third were genuine. He also compiled a data set of over 400 confirmed cases of fake hate-crime allegations reported to authorities between 2010 and 2017.
Prof. Reilly has a book titled Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War, published earlier this year (and available on Amazon here). No, I’m not getting a cut of the royalties, but if anyone has read the book, or wants to, I’d appreciate a more detailed report.
I have two goals in writing this post. First, for anyone in a minority group who may feel unsafe, I want to provide assurance. Based on the data discussed above, I think that there is no reason for such concern. This applies whether you are Jewish, or black, or gay, or a student worried about a school shooting.
Second, I think that we are being played. I don’t think that there’s a significant problem of hate crime, but false and misleading reports on the issue are being used to divide us and, interestingly, stoke actual hatred between groups. I’m not sure who is doing the playing — perhaps the media, or the Democrats; probably certain radical groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ADL, and Black Lives Matter.
I’ll end by paraphrasing a Democrat. Perhaps the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Published in Policing
There is a shortage of Hate Crimes. It is so bad that it is necessary to manufacture them
I’m not a statistician, but I do know that if a community experienced 1 crime last year and then 2 crimes this year, that is an increase in the crime rate of 100%. I find that sort of meaningless statistic in many “advocacy” groups’ use of percentages in their reporting. It pays to examine the actual numbers before giving any weight to percentage figures.
As Instapundit puts it, the demand for hate crimes far outstrips the supply.
To paraphrase another poster, I think on Ricochet, “The demand for hate crimes far exceeds the supply.”
Resolved: there is no such thing as a “hate crime”. Crime is crime, period.
Or, in the converse, crimes against persons are all, in some form, hate crimes–not only just the ones that those on the left feel are worth counting.
Are faked hate crimes a problem? I’m sure the Duke lacrosse team from a few years back would think so.
It’s about determining who is Bad, and therefore who is Good.
Which in turn determines whom civil society and the organs of Government support and empower, and whom they oppose and constrain.
With laws, and also with money.
Follow this through you’ll probably find the motivation for establishing these facts as self evident.
Great post, Jerry. Thanks for the numbers, and for the sober analysis: violent crime is always wrong, and if you’re a member of one of the affected groups, it will naturally look like more of a problem.
My son plays Grand Theft Auto. He tells me that overseas players frequently do shocking things because they mistakenly think it’s perfectly normal in America.
To be sure, some of our groups do some of the same things to boost fundraising. Antifa! BLM! You can’t wear a yarmulke! It’s like the USSR in the Thirties!! My kids have been on three college campuses, and about 98% of what’s written about them is pure BS, exaggerated to get you to send money, now! To some group that will allegedly combat the problem, but will certainly spend the money.
For the last 3 years, race relations was ranked in the top 3 problems facing Americans. Race relations cannot be improved without significantly reducing the number of hate crimes. The level of hate crimes is sufficient to considered a major issue by Americans. The levels may be low, but they are not low enough according to surveys. Therefore, hate crimes are a significant problem. QED.
Statistics are fine for making a rational argument, but arguments about hate crimes are about emotions (“hate” should give that away). So relying on this type of argument isn’t only the way to lose an argument, but a way of losing future arguments because many won’t bother to listen since you are already pigeonholed.
Exactly, especially since there are actual hate crimes, that are perpetuated against people that aren’t prosecuted that way because they aren’t in a protected group. If we want actual equality under the law we need to get rid of all “hate crime” legislation. A crime is a crime.
Well done.
Because I have a particular affinity for Jews and Judaism, I want to take exception with your observations in that regard, but your argument is excellent and so I am inclined to accept it
I’ll have to give it more thought, and in particular consider the difference between bigotry festering in respected institutions and among elite opinion makers, versus that held by the occasional troglodyte in the general population. Anti-Semitism seems different from other identity group bigotries, just because it so often seems to be accepted by otherwise respectable people.
Excellent post. Thank you.
We make a lot of distinctions in law about the severity of crimes, so no, “crime is crime” is false. Think about all the ways humans physically harm others and all the different levels of punishment.
Agreed. When the news reports that some new study finds that drinking 3 cups of coffee a day increases your chance of getting some kind of cancer by 25%, you need to ask, “What are my odds of having that particular cancer if I don’t drink coffee?” If my odds where only 1 in 200 (or 4 in 800) with no coffee, three cups a day raises my odds to 5 in 800. Is it really significant enough to care about?
Was recently looking for all the church shootings in recent years and was surprised t0 find how small the number actually was.
How about this? If you see something, say something.
You can’t help people being bullied or debased hundreds of miles away. You can help your neighbors. Even in your own neighborhood, you won’t always know which complaints are valid. Just respond to what happens around you and ignore the fear-mongering “news” media.
I’ve always had problems with the term hate crime. I’m more afraid of the guy who commits a crime not motivated by hate.
The person who murders their spouse in a fit of rage may not have committed the act if they weren’t lied to/cheated on/stolen from, etc. Something hateful pushed them from point A to point B. Still very bad, but you can at least try to anticipate and prevent these acts.
A person suffering from mental illness who randonly murders someone at the subway station for no reason at all, not motivated by hate, is in my opinion much more of a danger to society.
Wouldn’t the real problem here be the total obsession with reporting White on Black crime and fomenting racial tensions by the news media? It seems to me that the “popularity” of hate crimes is artificially ginned up by a dishonest Press.
Hate crimes will be a major issue until “whites” no longer have any significant power or wealth.
Henry, I also have a particular affinity, or perhaps sympathy, for Jews and Judaism. I focused on the issue of anti-Semitism in this post for two reasons: (1) it is the specific claim that has been in the news lately, and (2) I’ve been increasingly concerned about false or overstated claims of anti-Semitism over the past six months or so. None of the arguments presented are specific to the issue of anti-Semitism, and I reported the hate crime data for multiple groups.
Right. Hate may be a motive for a crime, but it is not a crime in itself. If anything, it should be a factor during sentencing.
This is an excellent post and an excellent point.
Here is my pushback: there is now a level of rhetoric about Jews that is the highest in my lifetime. The Jersey City residents who ranted and raved about how evil Jews are – on network television – is something I have not seen in America before. As rhetoric becomes acceptable, it translates into deeds. The process from hating Jews (as a category of people) out loud is not inevitable or linear: but it IS dangerous. It should be combated.
We would, quite rightly, not accept that same rhetoric against any group.
I have been spit at, had stones thrown at me, and been roundly cursed – on the streets in Europe, and by complete strangers. It was purely because I was visibly Jewish at the time.
In Baltimore, local non-Jews refer to my neighborhood as “Jew Town” and say all kinds of negative things. Strangers are seen casing/photographing synagogues, on average, every week. Sometimes they leave a backpack on premises to see how people react.
There is reason for concern. Not panic. But concern.
I would also point out that complaining about anti-semitism is really not helpful. Instead, nobody should be a victim. It starts with the mindset – I will not be victim. Nor will my kids. And when I see co-religionists whine, I tell them to find something worth defending, and then defend it. Every person should have the means to defend themselves.
We left the UK precisely because we could not defend ourselves there and we would not fight to preserve England. We can defend ourselves here. I believe in the United States of America, and absolutely am prepared to defend what it should be.
Liberals prefer to talk about “hate crimes” instead of crime in general because it enables them to gloss over the fact that in violent crimes involving blacks and whites, blacks are the attackers 90% of the time.*
Conservatives, aside from the great Heather MacDonald, are mostly too cowardly to talk about this, allowing the “black lives matter” movement to get away with promulgating falsehoods.
The “hate crimes” construct, being arbitrary and subjective, permits liberals to play up the rare white-on-black crimes and play down the much more commom black-on-white crimes. And, of course, they will sometimes take a black-on-white crime, like Trayvon Martin attacking George Zimmerman, and do all they can to twist it around.
The purpose of the exercise is to keep blacks fearful and voting Democratic — even as the Democrats permit the public school teachers unions to destroy black kids’ life chances.
*I was getting rid of some magazines from 1999, when my eye fell on a column by Professor Walter Williams in one of them. Yes, boys and girls, 20 years ago, the FBI numbers showed exactly the same 90% figure; though in some intervening years it dipped lower.
In homicides, however, typically the ratio drops to only two or three to one — because killers and victims are often relatives or acquaintances.
iWe, this is a good point too, and you may well be right. I haven’t seen any broad, empirical evidence on the issue, one way or the other. Part of my point is that sensationalized or narrative-driven news reporting can create a false impression of a problem, by focusing on specific instances that may be extremely rare.
I realize that the specific instances may not be extremely rare, and problems can emerge. It is difficult to determine when this occurs, in the absence of broad, empirical data and dispassionate analysis.
My general impression is that you are correct about an increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric. It would be helpful to quantify this, but it is difficult to do so and unfortunately, the most notable Jewish organization addressing the issue — the ADL — is not a reliable source, in my opinion.
There can be a troubling dynamic in such circumstances. Members of a minority group may feel insulted and threatened, accurately or inaccurately. They complain and make accusations of mistreatment and bigotry, perhaps justly, perhaps not. Often the rhetoric heats up, and majority may get the impression that the minority group is making an unfair accusation of systemic evil in our society, and seeking special privileges for their group. This can exacerbate the divisions and tensions that exist.
Anti-Semitism is not the only example. The Black Lives Matter movement presents the same problem, as do accusations of violence or other mistreatment against LGBT people or Muslims.
The underlying complaint may be just, or may be politically opportunistic. It is often hard to tell.
The troubling dynamic creates further division when the minority group, often understandably, becomes upset at the expression of skepticism regarding their claim. This is viewed as indifference to the problem, or even hostility. The skeptic is accused of being a denier and a bigot, using the appropriate epithet to the specific circumstances — anti-Semite, racist, homophobe, etc.
This is a very difficult problem to solve. Minority groups may well have legitimate grievances.
The hate crime data that I cite in the OP has an additional problem, beyond the issues of reliability and false reporting that I already referenced. If a true problem emerges, there will probably be a significant lag time, probably in the range of 1 1/2 to 2 years, before it will become apparent in the statistics.
I very much appreciate your dispassionate and thoughtful analysis. I cannot – and do not wish to – quibble.
I was personally shocked to see that Jersey City video, as well as this Facebook rant by a city official:
This is the kind of rhetoric that concerns me. It did not come out of a vacuum.
Concern but not panic. I think that’s the Aristotelian golden mean.