According to the New York City Police Department, hate crimes in New York City have skyrocketed by 100% compared to last year.
On Tuesday, the NYPD announced that there were 503 reported hate crimes this year as of December 5, which is up from 252 in 2020, representing a 100% increase.
Watch as NYPD executives provide updates on the NYPD Hate Crime Review Panel and recent Hate Crime investigations. https://t.co/JjphwfLyyj
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 7, 2021
“On the flip side of that, which shows the great work our hate crimes task force is doing, our arrests are up 106%. So on that 503 incidents, we’ve made 249 arrests on that,” NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.
“We have to shine a very bright light on this, and then making sure that everyone knows that when you do something like this, number one, you’ll be held accountable. But number two, it’s not acceptable, not only in this city, but anywhere,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
Below is a breakdown of the targeted groups, comparing the number of incidents during the period, January 1, 2021 to December 5, 2021, compared to 2020:
- Asian: 129 (2021), up from 28 (2020)
- Black: 30 (2021), down from 34 (2020)
- Disabled: 0 (2021), no change from 0 (2020)
- Ethnic: 7 (2021), up from 0 (2020)
- Gender: 20 (2021), up from 13 (2020)
- Hispanic: 7 (2021), up from 0 (2020)
- Jewish: 183 (2021), up from 121 (2020)
- Muslim: 12 (2021), up from 4 (2020)
- Religion: 8 (2021), down from 12 (2020)
- Sexual orientation: 85 (2021), up from 29 (2020)
- White: 20 (2021), up from 10 (2020)
“What we are seeing is anti-Asian really increasing both by percentage and the raw number. I think when you look at anti-Semitic and anti-Asian, that’s over 50 percent of all of the hate crimes in New York City,” Shea said Wednesday. “It’s the same old song in terms of what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a little bit of mental illness. We’re seeing just disregard for common decency.”
“When you have mass amounts of people put back on the streets that have traditionally been held in jail, you’re seeing some of that permeate here as well. I mean, that’s just a fact. It’s a fact that people don’t want to talk about, but when you … have people that have no regard for others, and expecting them to change their behavior dramatically. It’s not working out,” he added.
Shea referenced the wave of changes made in 2019 to the state’s bail laws which have impacted the prevention of hate crimes in the city.
“This series of reforms that were done. That we said you know, we support but that were done hastily, and done without the input of law enforcement, and we’re dealing with it still today,” Shea said on NY1 Tuesday. “That’s got to be the number one issue there’s no doubt because it’s, as I just said, it’s the city that we all love so much. And to see it pulled down in many ways is, is really hard to watch.”
“It’s almost as if we’re still in a state of denial, many of the legislators. And this is the number one issue that the next mayor is going to have to face and the next police commissioner is going to have to face, because everything is built on public safety,” he added.