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As election season nears, so does potential for more hate crimes, CSUSB professor says
Los Angeles Times
Jan. 23, 2020
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, was interviewed for an article about the increase in hate crimes in Los Angeles.
Reports of hate crimes rose in Los Angeles for the fifth straight year in 2019, increasing 10.3% over the year before and reaching their highest level since 2002, according to data released Wednesday. The newspaper reported that hate crimes were more violent, and crimes based on religion increased as well.
Some of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents reflects a change in how the LAPD classified crimes involving swastikas, which shifted such reports from the general anti-religion category to the anti-Jewish category, according to Levin.
Still, the trends were in line with other major cities. Last year, New York and Chicago each reported the highest incidence of hate crimes since 2001, and Jews were the most targeted demographic in those cities, as well.
“The bottom line is, swastikas have been normalized, and when we combine that with the ubiquity of anti-Semitic epithets and memes on the internet, I think it shows we’re in a new era,” Levin said. “We’re now at the highest level [of hate crimes] in almost two decades, overall, and just because swastikas are a driver, I think the question is, why the heck are we seeing so many swastikas during this year?”
Further in the article, Levin said, “I can tell you, with an election season coming up, we really have to be concerned because over the last decade, the three worst months were all around politically charged events. … Hate crimes tend to go up in election years, and most recently, the most diverse and bluest cities are where we’ve been seeing some of the biggest increase.”
Read the complete article at “Hate crimes in Los Angeles reach highest level since 2002, data show.”
Declining trust in institutions, demographic changes, coarseness in social media, neighborhood conflicts feed into hate violence, CSUSB professor says
CNN
Jan. 23, 2020
An article on the increase in reported hate crimes in Los Angeles included national perspective from Brian Levin, director of California State University, San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Nationally, the number of hate crimes that law enforcement agencies report to the FBI has been elevated in recent years. The latest report found 7,120 in 2018, just 55 fewer than had been reported in 2017. Between 2016 and 2017, the FBI found a 17% increase.
'It's pointing to a democratization of hate, because we're seeing different groups attacking each other. It's not just white and black,' Levin told CNN on Thursday.
'As you have a decline in trust in ... institutions, and demographics changes, and a more coarse social media, when we do have neighborhood conflicts,' there's more violence, he said.
The nation's three most populous cities -- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- appear in 2019 to have hit their highest number of reported hate crimes since 2001, Levin said. These are projections based on data his center collected from city governments or from the FBI. In some cases, he is waiting for data from December.
In smaller cities, such as San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Seattle, overall hate crime numbers are projected to have dropped in 2019 from a year prior, Levin said.
Read the complete article at “Los Angeles hate crime numbers were 40% higher in 2019 than in 2016, officials say.”
CSUSB professor quoted in article about increase in hate crimes in Los Angeles
The Sacramento Bee via The Associated Press
Jan. 23, 2020
Hate crimes in Los Angeles hit the city's highest levels since 2002 as the number of reported incidents rose 10%, officials said. Reported hate crimes increased from 292 incidents in 2018 to 322 in 2019, according to a city report. Hate crimes in Los Angeles have been rising since 2013.
Brian Levin, director of California State University, San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said the 2019 figure is the highest since 2002, when 354 hate crimes were reported. The year before, the city's high of 559 hate crimes were reported in Los Angeles.
Read the complete article at 'Hate crimes increase 10% in Los Angeles from 2018 to 2019.'
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