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(JTA) — A brand new FBI report discovered that anti-Jewish incidents elevated practically 20% in 2021 relative to 2020, however decreased relative to prior years.
The up to date FBI statistics launched Monday counted 817 anti-Jewish prison offenses reported by native legislation enforcement companies in 2021, up from 683 in 2020 — a yr when folks largely stayed off the streets for a considerable interval as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 numbers, nevertheless, characterize a 15% decline from 2019, when the FBI reported 963 hate crimes, in addition to a slight decline from 2018, when FBI statistics present 847 hate crimes.
Total, the report confirmed a complete of greater than 10,800 whole hate crimes — the best quantity in a long time. As in earlier years, anti-Jewish incidents comprised nearly all of the 1,590 hate crimes primarily based on faith.
That is the second report the FBI has launched concerning hate crimes in 2021. An preliminary report in December didn’t embrace knowledge from legislation enforcement companies in main cities akin to New York and Los Angeles. That report stated there have been solely 324 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2021, a quantity Jewish organizations stated was a large undercount. Different tallies of antisemitic incidents — such because the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit — had proven a rise.
The 2 experiences on 2021 exhibit the pitfalls of the FBI knowledge, which depends on experiences of prison offenses from native legislation enforcement companies. An rising variety of cities are declining to share knowledge outright. However the lack of information from main cities within the preliminary report, the FBI stated, was attributable to a transition to a brand new reporting system. The transition, the FBI stated in a press release on its web site, “resulted in an insufficient illustration of bias-motivated prison incidents within the nation.”
The up to date knowledge launched on Monday nonetheless has important gaps. Knowledge reported from Chicago, for instance, represents solely two quarters of 2021. The ADL known as on Congress to mandate that state and native legislation enforcement companies report hate crime knowledge to the FBI with the intention to obtain federal funding.
“Transferring ahead, legislation enforcement companies should urgently decide to hate crime knowledge assortment and reporting,” learn a press release from ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “Absent complete and inclusive knowledge, policymakers will lack the essential info that’s wanted to deal with these regarding tendencies.”
The info relies on prison offenses reported to the FBI by legislation enforcement companies. In some circumstances, an antisemitic incident can embrace a number of prison offenses. Not all incidents initially thought-about hate crimes are finally prosecuted that manner. For instance, a San Francisco man charged with brandishing a gun inside a Jewish heart there final month was initially charged with a hate crime, however a choose dropped the hate-crime portion throughout an early court docket listening to. It’s not clear whether or not such an incident can be mirrored within the FBI knowledge.
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