Hate Crime Is Rising In America's 30 Biggest Cities

The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, headquartered at California State University in Santa Barbara, has released a report showing that hate crime increased 9 percent across 30 major U.S. cities in 2018. The total number of hate crimes has now risen for the fifth consecutive year and the 2,009 crimes recorded last year represents the steepest rise since 2015. That's despite overall U.S. crime rates falling in the 30 cities.

The 2018 total marks a 42 percent increase over the 1,417 hate crimes recorded in the same cities in 2010. New York had the most incidents in 2018 - 361 - though that is hardly a surprise given the size of its population. The most common victims of hate crime were blacks, Jews and members of the LGBT community. In tandem with a rise in international antisemitic incidents, Jews were the target in half of all extremist homicides in the U.S. last year. 2018 has now become the country's worst year for antisemitic murders.

The good news is that extremist homicides decreased from 36 in 2017 to to 22 in 2017, though the number of white supremacist homicides did go up. A rise in murders fueled by hate crime occured around the midterms and long-term trends show that such incidents generally rise around major political events.