Last Updated on June 21, 2023 by BVN

S. E. Williams and Alex Reed

On Wednesday, April 5, 2023, deputies from the Hemet Sheriff’s Station in Riverside County were dispatched to Hamilton Elementary School in Anza in response to racist graffiti found scrawled across the school and on the roadway nearby. The graffiti included racial epithets certain to discourage young minds potentially exposed to them. For a school where nearly 60% of the student  population are people of color to be targeted by a 17-year-old white male and his accomplice, speaks volumes.  

“We pass hatred and prejudice on to our children as though they were heirlooms of humanity,” L.M. Browning once wrote. This painful reality has remained evident throughout the nation’s history. In recent years, America’s penchant for crimes fueled by hate are once again kindled by overheated, biased fueled rhetoric, resulting in an exponential increase in hate crimes.  

Here in California, despite its open-minded veneer and reputation as one of country’s most liberal states, hate crimes are as evident, harmful and hurtful to communities that fall victim to such acts, as they are anywhere else in the nation. 

Yet, the places where acts of bias and hatred occur, are the same places we can heal. 

This dashboard is designed to provide an in-depth look at where the pain exists in our California communities, including who is falling victim to these hate fueled acts, as well as the types of hate crimes being committed and for what reason(s). In addition, it provides a look at accountability as it relates to who is being prosecuted and convicted of these crimes. 

To that end, the Dashboard examines Hate Crimes, Charges, Prosecutions and Convictions across a five year period, 2016 to 2021 by county. 

Do you know the types of hate crimes being committed in your community? Have those crimes increased or decreased in recent years? Who are the victims? Why are they being victimized? Who is perpetrating hate crimes against them and why? Is the justice system in your community holding perpetrators accountable?

We encourage you to explore the Hate Crime Prosecutions: Cases Filed as Hate Crimes vs Guilty Convictions dashboard to find answers to these questions.

Click on the map for an interactive experience.

To assist in your overall assessment of the dashboard please consider the  following: 

In relation to all hate crimes, 58% of reported incidents during this five year period  were  racially targeted, followed by Gender/Orientation bias (24%), Religious bias (15%), and Disability (3%). The majority of offense types during this period were verbal slurs followed by graffiti. This map provides a view of all hate crimes by type during the report period (2016 to 2021).

Please note that in 2019, the Orange County Sheriff disclosed they unintentionally under-reported four 2018 hate crimes during the reporting cycle.

Also for clarification, the offense type identified as “other” is primarily property damage related crimes

Click on the map for an interactive experience.

Hate Crimes and Accountability

Data reveals there is little consequence for bad behavior as it relates to hate crimes. Generally, only 35% of hate crimes are referred for potential prosecution and of those, only 50% (18% off all crimes) are filed. 58% of cases filed are disposed, and of those, 49% are convicted as a hate crime. the other 51% are either not convicted of a hate crime, or not convicted at all. This means of all the hate crimes committed in the state of California during this five year period, ess than 6% resulted in a hate crime conviction. 

There are occasions when crimes  were filed and then prosecuted as a “bias related crime” and not convicted as a “hate crime”. In such instances although the perpetrator is held accountable, the jury or judge did not agree that the crime was motivated by hate.

For a closer look at hate crime accountability within your county the following map examines Hate Crime Prosecutions by highlighting Cases Filed as Hate Crimes vs Guilty Convictions across a five year period, 2016 to 2021.

Click on the map for an interactive experience. While viewing use the vertical slider bar to move left to right to view Cases Filed (left side) vs Guilty Convictions (right side). You can also click each county to view more agency and prosecutorial information including cases that were dropped or reduced. cases. In addition, within the pop-ups themselves, you can click the left and right arrows on the bottom right to tab through time for each county.

Prevalence of hate crimes vs population

When considering the prevalence of hate crimes vs the population in each California county (ignore that the numbers are small) an interesting trend emerges. Four of the top ten counties with the most hate crime incidents have less than 250K residents. For example, Lake County ranks number 40 among California counties in terms of population and yet ranked number three overall in the prevalence of hate crimes during this period.  

Three Types of Bias

The dashboard includes separate maps focused on hate crimes based on Racial Bias,  Gender/Orientation Bias and Religious Bias. Key findings in these areas are as follows:

Racial Bias

The majority (48%) of racial hate crimes during this period were Anti-Black at 28%, followed by Anti-Hispanic/Latino at 11% and Anti-Asian at 7%. 

There was a 67% increase in racially motivated hate crimes between 2019 and 2020, a significant increase from the 11% decrease during 2018-19 and the 3% decrease in reports during  2017-18.

In 2020, Anti-Asian hate was third  among races (89 incidents), by 2021 the rate of incidents had nearly tripled (248 incidents), placing incidents of hate against this group as 2nd behind Anti-Black hate

The majority types of offenses in this category were verbal slurs followed by graffiti.

Click on the map for an interactive experience. When viewing the map press play on the right side of the slider to move through time, alternately use the arrow on the slider bar and move left to right to highlight a specific year. Click each county to view more information about predominant crime types. 1 dot = 1 reported crime. click on a dot within the desired county and when the pop up box appears click the right arrow at the top of the pop up to navigate from year to year. Scroll down to view pie chart and then click and hover above it  to view more information.

Gender/Sexual Orientation Bias

Data reveals a majority (61%) of  gender/sexual orientation related hate crimes is Anti-Gay (male), followed by Anti-LGBT. The data also confirms that Gender/Sexual Orientation related crimes have been on the rise since 2015. The majority of offense type against this group were verbal slurs.

Click on the map for an interactive experience. When viewing the map press play on the right side of the slider to move through time, alternately use the arrow on the slider bar and move left to right to highlight a specific year. Click each county to view more information about predominant crime types. 1 dot = 1 reported crime. click on a dot within the desired county and when the pop up box appears click the right arrow at the top of the pop up to navigate from year to year. Scroll down to view pie chart and then click and hover above it  to view more information.

Religious Bias

During the five year period of this report the majority (61%) of religious hate crimes were  Anti-Jewish, followed by Anti-Islamic. 

Hate crimes motivated by Religious Hate decreased from 208 incidents in 2019 to 180 incidents in 2020, then rose 22% in 2021 to 220 incidents.

The majority of offense types were graffiti followed by “other”.

Click on the map for an interactive experience. When viewing the map press play on the right side of the slider to move through time, alternately use the arrow on the slider bar and move left to right to highlight a specific year. Click each county to view more information about predominant crime types. 1 dot = 1 reported crime. click on a dot within the desired county and when the pop up box appears click the right arrow at the top of the pop up to navigate from year to year. Scroll down to view pie chart and then click and hover above it  to view more information.

This hate dashboard and associated maps are funded by the Stop the Hate campaign administered by the California State Library.

Stephanie Williams is executive editor of the IE Voice and Black Voice News. A longtime champion for civil rights and justice in all its forms, she is also an advocate for government transparency and committed to ferreting out and exposing government corruption. Stephanie has received awards for her investigative reporting and for her weekly column, Keeping it Real. Contact Stephanie with tips, comments. or concerns at myopinion@ievoice.com.