Hate crimes remain prevalent in California

Article written by Benjamin Verbrugge, News4usonline Staff Writer

Hate crimes are among some of the most egregious acts a person can perform. Despite being such a senseless crime, the California Department of Justice Hate Crime Report for 2023 shows that they are very prevalent in our community.

The report does show a slight 7.1 percent decrease in hate crime events from 2022 to 2023, but still, with nearly 2,500 victims in California alone, it is an alarming number.

Even with the slight decrease in reported numbers, California has seen a gradual rise over the past decade, with a 159.9 percent increase in hate crimes when the report’s study first started in 2014. The DOJ notes in the report that the statistics could be slightly skewed as a significant amount of California counties could only report part of the data from the year due to limitations the agencies experienced during 2023.

“We know that hate crimes are often underreported and that this hate crime report may not capture the full scope of what our communities are facing,” said Cat Nou, California DOJ CARE director.

It is also important to point out that in 2022, Statista listed California as the state with the highest number of hate groups in the United States (103).

The 2024 stats are likely to balloon again, given everything going on in the world, including an election year and continued conflict worldwide.

Hate crimes stem from a number of different biases that include race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion as the primary motivating factors. Race is the overwhelming, leading cause, but interestingly enough, it saw a decrease of over 20 percent this past year, while religious bias jumped up a staggering 30 percent.

It is hard to say for sure, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might have something to do with the spike in religion-based hate crimes.

Although it is a battle over territory, religion is right at the issue’s root.

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has sparked a lot of controversy, with people picking sides, even in the United States. There has been speculation that the tension in the Middle East and other nations’ involvement could potentially lead to World War III.

The dispute could have consequentially led to increased attacks on places of worship in America. While these instances are not always labeled as hate crimes, the fact of the matter is that many of these occurrences have arisen from distaste towards certain groups of people.

California alone has been in the news a lot over the past year for attacks, bomb threats, and vandalization of places of worship.

During the holy month of Ramadan, a man was accused of assault at a mosque in Novato after pepper spraying a member of the Islamic Center of North Marin. The suspect was also said to be armed with a gun, though he did not use it before fleeing the scene.

“One of our congregation members noticed that he had a firearm in his bag. Due to some of the things that we have seen in the world and in mosques and other places of worship, an increase of hate crimes, he was very concerned that something might happen,” said Zachary, a member of the Islamic Center.

In April a man denied he had committed a hate crime and pleaded not guilty, but police say he was seen on video using a skateboard to break the windows of Masjid Al-Tawheed mosque in San Francisco.

The rise of religious bias goes beyond just the Muslim community; the largest targeted group, according to the DOJ’s report, is the Jewish community, with 289 hate crime instances in 2023.

Recently, on two separate occasions, men were arrested for church bombing suspicion. A Sacramento federal grand jury indicted a man for allegedly leaving hoax backpack bombs in Roseville and several other places of worship in Southern California last March. Another suspect was also just arrested in mid-August for a bomb threat made against a Shreveport Catholic Church.

Often, when people think of someone committing a hate crime, racism is the first thing that comes to mind as being the motive, and rightfully so. Race still makes up a majority of hate crimes in California, but the other areas of bias are concerning as well when taking the overall increase into account.

“Throughout California’s history, too many of us have felt the sting of hate and discrimination,” said California attorney general Rob Bonta. “It’s going to take all of us working together to take on bias and hate and their toxic effects on our society.”

It is important to remember that negative bias comes in many different forms, and far too many people unjustly feel a certain way about specific groups of people.