Hate Crimes in the U.S.: Who Bears the Brunt?

According to statistics released by the FBI, reported hate crimes in the U.S. in 2022 were up year over year both in terms of incidents as well as victims. While official numbers show that most of the crimes were committed due to an underlying anti-Black bias, there is a religious group that is perceived to face even more grave problems connected to hate crime.

Our chart based on YouGov survey data published by The Economist shows that almost two thirds of all respondents surveyed online in early December 2023 are of the opinion that crimes motivated by the race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender of the victims were a somewhat or very serious problem for Jewish people. In the age cohorts of 45 to 64 and 65 and older, 70 and 79 percent, respectively, had the notion that these types of crimes committed against Jews were a serious issue. 63 percent of survey participants thought that Black individuals face serious problems in terms of hate crimes committed against the group, while 59 and 55 percent perceived hate crimes against Muslim and Arab people, respectively, as a serious issue.

The survey results suggest that younger people in the age bracket of 18 to 29 generally see crimes motivated by racial or religious issues as a more serious problem for Arabs, Muslims and Black people than for Jews. U.S. adults aged 30 and over tend to think that Jewish people are more impacted by hate crimes. Nevertheless, these types of crimes are consistently seen as a more serious issue when it comes to minorities in every age bracket; only 37 percent of overall respondents thought hate crimes against Christians were a serious issue, while around 32 percent claimed that such crimes committed against white people were a somewhat or very serious problem.

What's important to note is that this survey only shows the perception of participants, whose answers were "weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and Presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status" according to YouGov, with a margin of error of 3.1 percent. Perception of hate crimes against other minority groups like Hispanics or Latinx people or the LGBTQ+ community was not polled, possibly due to the survey's focus on the current situation in Israel and Palestine and corresponding anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiments. It's not representative of the true scope of officially recorded hate crimes and the underlying bias, but serves to illustrate how reported facts and personal perception can differ.