Hate Crimes In Virginia: FBI Report Shows Decrease

VIRGINIA — New FBI data shows a slight decrease in hate crimes in 2018 compared with 2017. The law enforcement agency recently published its "Hate Crimes Statistics" report, finding that the reported number of hate crimes in the United States decreased slightly from 7,175 incidents in 2017 to 7,120 in 2018.

Virginia followed that trend, while the District of Columbia saw an increase in reported hate crimes.

Whether fewer hate crimes were reported to police in 2018 than 2017 is difficult to ascertain because 110 fewer law enforcement agencies participated in the program overall compared with the previous year. In 2018, 16,039 agencies participated in the report; however, only 2,026 submitted incident reports about hate crimes. The remaining agencies reported no hate crimes to the FBI.

In Virginia, 415 law enforcement agencies participated in the program during 2018, and the agencies reported a total of 143 hate crimes to the FBI, a decrease from the 193 documented hate crimes reported in 2017.

In Washington, DC, 213 hate crimes were reported for a population of 702,455 in 2018. Of the reported hate crimes, 99 of the incidents were targeted because of their race or ethnicity.

The Commonwealth is home to 39 radical groups that spew hate – an increase of two from one year ago. Among them are Neo-Nazis, black and white nationalists and groups whose members are anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT or which to promote the Confederacy.

The list has been drawn up by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which located the groups on an interactive map.

Related:

• 39 Hate Groups Are Active In Virginia
  
• Virginia Hate Groups: Map Shows Active Racist Organizations

White supremacist propaganda materials, including the distribution of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic fliers, stickers, banners and posters, are showing up in cities across Virginia and nationwide at an increasing rate, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League issued in March 2019. White supremacy incidents increased 182 percent in 2018 compared to the year before, the report said.

Virginia reported 121 total incidents in 2018, including the infamous torch march by 200 white supremacists through the University of Virginia campus before a "Unite the Right" rally where a woman died when a car plowed into a crowd of counter-demonstrators. There were many other incidents reported across the state, such as the entrance sign of a summer camp at a Jewish Community Center was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti; "Hitler was right," swastikas, and the SS symbol were painted on exterior of a JCC building in Fairfax County; and anti-gay literature that included a swastika was posted at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.

The incidents are plotted on the first-of-its-kind interactive map developed by ADL experts in its Center on Extremism that details extremist and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States.

The District of Columbia tallied 60 incidents, including: 40 members of the Patriot Front, an alt right group, holding a demonstration wth a banner reading "Reclaim America"; white supremacist flyers left at American University depicted a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student; and several cases of anti-Semitic fliers left in universities and neighborhoods.

Most of the 1,187 incidents of propaganda — up from 421 incidents in 2017 — occurred on college campuses, the ADL said in its report. There were 868 incidents on college campuses, up from 129 the year before.

According to the FBI, a majority of the victims nationally (59.6 percent) were targeted because of a bias toward race, ethnicity or ancestry. The second most common reason a victim was targeted was because of religion (18.7 percent), followed by sexual orientation (15.8 percent), gender identity (2.2 percent), disability (2.1 percent) and gender (0.7 percent), according to the statistics.

The FBI says 53.6 percent of the known offenders were white, 24 percent were black or African American, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders. The percentages for white and black or African American known offenders both increased by about 3 percent from 2017. According to the FBI, a "known offender" does not imply that a suspect's identity is known but that "some aspect of the suspect was identified."

"Before a community addresses hate- and bias-motivated crimes, all stakeholders need to understand the local problem," the U.S. Department of Justice advises. "The best assessment method is the SARA model: scanning for the problems, analyzing the facts, responding to reduce the problems, and assessing the outcome of the response."

The Department of Justice also provides a list of tips to help ensure local law enforcement is partnered with the community in a joint mission to stop hate crimes from happening.

• Network with others in the community and ask who they recommend including in the partnership.
• Research and understand how involved your local law enforcement agency is with community policing, and identify a liaison officer at your local law enforcement agency who might serve as a point of contact.
• Reach out to the chief of police or sheriff, as well as any other key personnel you would like to participate in the partnership.
• Focus on solutions rather than problems when meeting with your local chief or police or sheriff.

Hate crimes are currently the highest investigative priority of the FBI's civil rights program, according to the agency.