By Magaly Muñoz

The California Department of Justice (DOJ) released its 2023 Hate Crimes report in late June revealing that while some years had drops in crime including between 2022 and 2023, overall hate crimes rose by 159% since 2013.

A hate crime is defined as a criminal act or attempted criminal act against an individual or group because of their actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability.

The DOJ is required to collect and review hate crime cases on a regular basis, and publish that data in an annual report. The data is evaluated and investigated only by crimes that are reported to law enforcement, so the data may appear different from other agencies who collect this information.

Underreporting of hate crimes is a larger issue across the country because many people often do not know that they are a victim or do not feel safe reporting to the authorities.

The DOJ data showed several increases and decreases over various sets of points.

Hate crime events involving a racial bias decreased 21.6% from 1,298 in 2022 to 1,017 in 2023. Anti-Black bias events fell from 652 in 2022 to 518 events in 2023. Anti-other ethnicity events fell 50% from 96 reports in 2022 to 48 in 2023.

But hate crimes involving sexual orientation, gender and religion increased overall since last year.

Hate crime events about sexual orientation bias increased from 391 in 2022 to 405 in 2023. Anti-LGBTQ+ bias events rose an astounding 86% from 81 to 151 in the same year.

Anti-religion hate crimes rose 30% from 303 to 394 in one year. Anti-Jewish bias rose over 50% from 189 reports to 289 in 2023 and anti-Muslim events rose from 25 to 40 in that same timeframe.

Bay Area counties as a collective also saw variations in reports of hate crime since 2022.

San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Sonoma were the only counties that saw slight drops in hate crime reports from 2022 to 2023.

Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, and Solano all saw small to significant increases in that time frame. Napa went from 2 reports to 10; Marin increased from 8 to 21; and San Francisco saw an increase of 41 reports to 64.

California offers a resource line that uses community-centered and culturally competent approaches in order to assist a victim that has experienced a hate crime. Victims can report a hate crime using an online form-available in 15 languages- at CAvsHate.org or by calling 833-8NO-HATE (833-866-4283) – also available in 200 languages.

This resource was supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library via California Black Media as part of the Stop the Hate program.  The program is supported by partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to https://www.cavshate.org/

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