Muslim civil rights group responds to report that ‘88% of cities don’t report hate crimes data’
(Washington, D.C., 3/22/22) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today reiterated its call for the Biden administration and Congress to make all aid, grants, training, or other assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies contingent on their reporting and compiling of hate crime data.
CAIR’s renewed call comes in response to a report showing that the “number of police agencies participating in the FBI’s hate crimes report declined in 2020 — the third straight year of decreases. About 88% of cities don’t report hate crimes data.”
SEE: Axios: DOJ: More police departments declining to report hate crimes
However, the FBI’s annual hate crime statistics report last year documented more than 7,700 hate crime incidents in 2020, about 450 more than were reported in 2019, the highest number of reported hate crime incidents since 2008.
Axios analysis of data also found that: “More than 12,000 law enforcement agencies reported zero hate crimes FBI numbers showed. The list includes police departments in Miami, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Huntsville, Alabama,” and that, “Just a handful of cities and towns in states like Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida bothered to report hate crimes in 2020.”
In a statement, CAIR Director of Government Affairs Department Robert S. McCaw said:
“Something is terribly wrong when the FBI is tracking the highest number of reported hate crime incidents in the past decade – and the actual number of state and local law enforcement agencies reporting these crimes is decreasing.
“The true number of hate crimes incidents occurring every day in the United States is higher than we know and remains extremely under-reported. Our nation is unable to appropriately respond to this rise in hate crime incidents because our government and local police departments have not prioritized the reporting or collecting of hate crime data.
“After years of racial profiling, discriminatory arrests, illegal immigration crackdowns, and police officer shootings of unarmed African-Americans, many minority communities are already under-reporting hate crime incidents to the police.
“To make matters worse, more and more police departments are now failing to report hate crime incidents to the Department of Justice.
“We renew our call for the Biden administration and Congress to work together to require the federal government to condition any aid, grants, training, or other assistance to local law enforcement agencies on their agreement to submit regular and complete data regarding hate crime incidents targeting minority communities.
“This should help dramatically increase the number of law enforcement agencies that track and report data regarding these incidents, which is a crucial step toward combating the rising tide of hate and bigotry.”
Background:
In May 2021, Congress passed, and President Biden signed into law the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, which included provisions that directed the Department of Justice to expedite the review of COVID-19 related hate crimes. In the past two years, there has been a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. The act also included Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, which incentives but does not mandate state and local law enforcement reporting of hate crime incidents.
According to the FBI’s 2020 hate crime statistics report, attacks targeting Black people rose to 2,755 from 1,930 last year, and attacks on Asian-Americans rose to 271 from 164. According to the report, 62 percent of victims were targeted because of their race or ethnicity, and 13 percent were targeted because of their religion.
Because law enforcement agencies are not required to submit their data to the FBI for its annual report, the recently released statistics are likely an undercount. More than 3,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies did not submit their 2020 statistics to the FBI.
SEE: Hate Crime Reports in US surge to the Highest Level in 12 years, FBI says
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com