Resources
Author: CSU San Bernardino Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (CSHE)
Year: 2015-2021
Method: Curation of data from government agencies (Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Census, selected U.S. policing agencies) and community reporting tools (Stop AAPI Hate)
Population: AAs; national and selected states
Summary of findings: Anti-Asian hate crimes reported to police in 16 of America’s largest cities and counties, rose 164%, from 36 to 95, in the first quarter of 2021 in comparison to the first quarter of 2020. In 2020, Anti-Asian hate crime increased 146% across 26 of America’s largest jurisdictions that comprise over 10% of the nation’s population. The Stop AAPI Hate sample may have enumerated even more crimes for those “verbal harassments” in their dataset that rise to a criminal threat, referred to as “intimidation” by the FBI. Larger cities with a higher percentage of Asian residents, hate crime units, victim outreach, and a lengthy history of data collection were those most likely to show higher numerical and percentage increases. The surge in hate crimes and incidents, particularly in large cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco may have been significantly influenced by political rhetoric and media coverage rather than the pandemic’s severity alone.