Five of the 10 largest U.S. cities saw more hate crimes in 2023 compared to 2022, while two saw no change, and three saw decreases. That’s according to new, unpublished data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, upon which Axios reported.
Hate crimes increased last year, compared to 2022, in Houston (193%), San Diego (47%), Chicago (43%), Los Angeles (13%) and Austin (7%), but remained the same in Dallas and Phoenix. They decreased in New York City (2%), San Antonio (8%) and Philadelphia (13%).
“It was the third straight year of spikes in the big cities’ overall average number of hate crimes and came as the Israel-Hamas war sparked jumps in antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes in the last months of 2023,” per Axios. It added that hate crimes have increased nationwide for 23 years “driven in part by better data collection from police and state agencies.”
“These overall increases in hate crime also extended to major cities outside the 10 largest ones, including San Francisco, Washington, Denver, Seattle, Boston and Salt Lake City, among others,” according to Axios.
After Oct. 7, anti-Jewish hate crimes have spiked and “supplanted black Americans as the most targeted group in America’s 10 largest cities, probably for the first time, the center said,” according to Axios. It noted that Jew-hated is up 12.6% in New York, 48% in Los Angeles and 10% in Chicago.
“Anti-Muslim hate crimes also jumped 22%, 40% and 300% in the same cities, respectively,” it added. The Axios article did not say how many anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents there have been in those cities.
On Oct. 16, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Jew-hatred accounted for more than half of all reported faith-based hate crimes in 2022.
