U.S. hate crimes rise in 1st half of 2022: data

NEW YORK, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Hate crimes in major U.S. cities rose moderately during the first half of 2022 after posting double-digit percentage increases over the past two years, according to police data compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

The data collected from 15 major city police departments show an average increase of about 5 percent in bias-motivated incidents so far this year, according to a new report by the extremism research center at California State University at San Bernardino. The 15 cities have a combined population of 25.5 million people.

By comparison, a larger sample of data from 52 major cities compiled by the center showed hate crimes in the United States surged by nearly 30 percent in 2021, according to the report.

U.S. hate crimes have been on the rise in recent years, driven by factors ranging from a surge in anti-Asian sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic to anti-Black animus in reaction to racial justice protests that broke out across America in 2020 after the killing of African American George Floyd while in police custody, said BreakingNewsTexas.com in its report of the data.

"There is a bit of a deceleration going on, but events don't get confined to one year, they can be multi-year trends," Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was quoted as saying.