Continuing an upward trend, the FBI reported on Monday that hate crimes rose in 2016. This marks the second year in a row with more reported attacks against blacks, members of the LGBT community, Jews, and Muslims. It certainly doesn’t take a genius to figure out what might be one of the correlating factors in this disturbing increase (ahem, Donald Trump). In fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been reporting on it for quite some time.
According to their research, the number of hate crimes reached a five-year high last year and took a significant upturn close to the election. In fact, between October and December of 2016 there was a 25.9 percent increase in hate crimes that were reported as compared to the same time period in 2015.
Here’s how the reported hate crimes from 2016 break down:
More than half the 4,229 racially motivated crimes were against black people, while 20 percent were against whites, the report shows. And Jews were targeted in more than half the 1,538 crimes that were motivated by religion. Crimes fueled by bias against LGBT people rose from 203 in 2015 to 234 last year.
One thing that is certain is that these numbers do not represent a complete picture of hate crimes in the country. Many law enforcement agencies have failed to report hate crime statistics to the FBI. And what law enforcement officials consider a hate crime can vary. So while we know the numbers are up, we don’t know how many more hate crimes are unreported (both to police and the FBI) and we don’t know how often something has been a hate crime but not considered as such by local or federal law enforcement agencies.
Moreover, we know that this is not a priority of the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions. He’s far more concerned with enacting his own crimes of hate against marginalized communities than he is in prosecuting them.
On Monday, Sessions said the Justice Department is awaiting a full report from a task force on steps it can take to improve training for prosecutors and investigators, boost data collection on hate crimes and partner with local officials and communities. In the meantime, Sessions said, the department can continue to aggressively prosecute people who violate the civil rights of others.
“The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that individuals can live without fear of being a victim of violent crime based on who they are, what they believe, or how they worship,” Sessions said in a statement.
If only these statements were believable. In a different context, under a different administration (like the previous one), we might be able to believe that hate crimes are not encouraged by lawmakers and will be actively prosecuted. And while the United States has a very long history of hateful treatment and legislation against vulnerable people that did not begin with Trump, it’s hard to recall the last time a president yelled things like “get’em out of here” or “get that son of a bitch off the field,” referring to protesters who are largely people of color, while campaigning for office.
So no surprises here that hate crimes are on the rise in this country. The question is whether or not they will decline at some point during this horrific administration. And unfortunately, that seems highly unlikely.