LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Los Angeles County Commission on Human
Relations today released its first-ever Hate Incident Report, showing reported
non-criminal hate acts in the county grew 35%, from 609 in 2022 to 821 in 2023.
Hate incidents are non-criminal occurrences motivated by prejudice or
bias against a person or group’s actual or perceived identity. Such incidents
can include verbal abuse, harassment and displays of offensive material.
According to the survey, reported hate incidents taking place at
schools, colleges and universities rose 234% — from 59 to 197. Incidents with
white supremacist ideology increased 124% — from 33 to 74, while Middle East
conflict-related incidents grew from 2 to 45, an increase of 2,150%.
“Hate incidents can be just as traumatic for victims as hate crimes,
and can perpetuate systemic inequality; so all of us must report them, not
accept them as `normal’,” Robin Toma, LACCHR executive director, said in a
statement. “Understanding hate incident data along with hate crime data is a
crucial new dimension for effective prevention and intervention policies and
action.”
The commission’s 2023 Hate Crime Report, published in December 2024,
revealed that hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose to their highest level in
43 years in 2023, jumping 45% from the previous year. The report found 1,350
reported hate crimes in the county two years ago, up from 930 the prior year.
That number is the highest it’s been since the annual hate crime analysis began
in 1980.
Although some of the incident report’s findings align with those in
the 2023 hate crime survey, the current study provides a more comprehensive
picture of hate activity in L.A. County, according to the LACCHR.
For example, the hundreds of hate incidents analyzed in the report
show a significant growth of bias-motivated activity at schools, colleges and
universities, as well as hate acts related to the conflict in the Middle East
and white supremacist ideology.
The report also found that:
— Blacks were targeted for 52% of all racial/ethnic/national origin-
motivated hate incidents, and anti-Black incidents increased 12% from 211 to
237;
— Incidents targeting Jewish persons spiked 153% from 66 to 167, with
90% of religious-motivated hate incidents aimed at the Jewish community;
— Sexual orientation incidents increased 24%, from 119 to 148.
Incidents targeting gay males, lesbians and LGBT all grew;
— Latino/as were the second largest racially targeted group,
reporting 69 hate incidents — at 15%, and 60% of these incidents included anti-
immigrant slurs;
— Asian Americans comprised 15% of all reported racial incidents,
with a decrease from 76 to 66. Thirty-three percent of these incidents were
anti-Chinese;
— Gender-motivated incidents increased by 53% from 36 to 55. Forty of
the incidents were anti-transgender and 13 were anti-female; and
— Disability-motivated incidents grew from 3 to 11.
The hate incident information, as distinct from hate crime data, is
collected and analyzed with the same methodology as LACCHR’s annual hate crime
report, drawing data from law enforcement agencies, the commission’s LAvsHate
countywide anti-hate program, educational institutions and community-based
organizations.
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