The California Attorney General’s Office of Community Awareness, Response and Engagement (CARE) released its annual Hate Crime in California Report revealing startling increases across the spectrum of bigotry.
Hate Crime in California 2021 presents statistics on hate crimes reported by California law enforcement agencies that occurred during 2021 with prior years included for context. These statistics include the reported number of hate crime events, hate crime offenses, victims of hate crimes, and suspects of hate crimes.
With the second highest increase at 32.3%, anti-Jewish bias events rose from 115 in 2020 to 152 in 2021. This corresponds with ADL’s Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, which reported that California saw an increase of 27% in total antisemitic incidents (harassment, vandalism, and assaults), jumping from 289 to 367 incidents in 2021.
Alarmingly, anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) hate crime events skyrocketed from 89 reported events in 2020 to 247 in 2021 – an increase of 177.5%. Unfortunately, this corresponds with both ADL data and the FBI’s annual Hate Crimes Report, which tracked surges of xenophobic and racist incidents targeting members of the AAPI community, including an ongoing rise since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, ADL’s recently released annual Online Hate and Harassment Report – though national in scope – also shows that Asian-American respondents have experienced the largest single year-over-year rise in severe online harassment in comparison to other groups, with 17% reporting it this year compared to 11% last year.
The offices of ADL California serve as a trusted partner to the Attorney General’s office and are grateful for the state’s commitment to fight hate for good. It is through elected leadership and community partnerships that we collectively can best call out, track, and prevent hate crimes from occurring in the Golden State.
