SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The FBI released its annual hate crimes report this week, but it’s missing data from some of the most populated states: California, Florida, and New York. So, while the report says hate crimes decreased in 2021, it’s simply not true.
ABC10/CBS8 political reporter Morgan Rynor dug deep into figuring out why law enforcement agencies didn’t provide data to the FBI.
She found only 65% of law enforcement agencies across the country provided data — down 90% from the year before — and it’s because the FBI transitioned to a new database that it seems only police departments in the San Diego area are up to speed on.
The FBI recorded 7,300 hate crimes in 2021, but data from cities like Los Angeles and New York City weren’t included, so it changes the narrative entirely.
“We’re already talking about another 2,200 to add on to the 7,300, which would put us over 9,000… actually, about 9,500 if we put in New York City and California alone,” said Brian Levin. “Which would make 2021 the 2nd worst year since data has been collected since 1991.”
Levin is the director for the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
“California was shown by the FBI to have only 73 hate crimes, and only 15 out of 740 agencies in California actually participated,” said Levin.
The 15 that participated were concentrated in the San Diego area.
“It’s so incomplete as to be inadvertently deceptive,” said Levin.
His center creates its own hate crime database from public information requests and information state agencies have available online.
“Jewish people in America, the top two places where they live, New York City and Los Angeles, both aren't counted. FBI said in the places that they were counting that there were 324 hate crimes; just in LA and New York City, we had 287,” said Levin. “And a record for anti-Asian up 224% but you won't see it in the FBI data. Luckily, various cities and states of which we collect from do keep this data.”
California law enforcement agencies usually provide this data to the California Department of Justice, but the FBI switched over to a new database and they’ll only accept data if it’s in the new format.
“To date, nearly 600 reporting agencies have completed the transition and are in the process of becoming certified by our office,” said the California Department of Justice.
Levin says, in the future, the database will be a good thing because it breaks down the data in a better format. Still, he wants the FBI to go back and fix the report once they get all the data.
The discrepancy in the FBI’s numbers could affect the work of criminologists, policymakers and historians.
Levin says groups like his, the Anti-Defamation League and Stop AAPI Hate all individually collect the data.
