Anti-Defamation League says Florida hate crimes are dropping because many aren’t reported

Hate crimes nationwide are on the rise, but not in Florida, according to a new FBI report that shows bigotry-inspired acts have dropped significantly in the last three years.

But those numbers are likely inaccurate because of a national underreporting problem “that is particularly pronounced in Florida,” the Anti-Defamation League said Thursday.

The FBI’s annual hate crimes statistics report, released Monday, revealed that hate crimes in Florida fell from 145 in 2017 to 109 in 2020 — a 25% dip.

Meanwhile, hate crimes across the U.S. rose to 7,759 incidents reported in 2020, marking the highest total since 2008 despite the number of law enforcement agencies providing data dropping from 16,188 in 2018 to 15,136 in 2020.

Underreporting is a major issue in tracking hate crimes; the ADL noted that 85% of participating agencies did not report a single hate crime last year.

“Underreporting of hate crimes in Florida, and nationwide, is a severe obstacle to investigation and prosecution of these crimes, which leads to a lack of accountability for bias-motivated offenses that can intimidate, isolate and terrorize entire communities,” ADL Florida Regional Director Sarah Emmons said in a statement. “As the leader of the Florida Hate Crime Coalition, ADL continues to call on Florida’s law enforcement agencies to improve data collection and the reporting of the crimes, and we will continue working with the Florida Legislature to make our state’s hate crime law more comprehensive.”

While Florida’s hate crime numbers in 2020 hovered in the low 100s, states with similarly sized populations like New York and Texas reported a far greater number of incidents, 463 and 406, respectively.

The likely reason, ADL personnel said: Of 687 law enforcement agencies in Florida, just 452 participated in the FBI’s hate crime reporting program, and just 54 — 12% of participating agencies and 8% of all existing ones — reported at least one incident.

“We live in deeply dangerous times, and we have an insufficient government response to that danger,” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chair Catherin Lhamon told ProPublica in November 2019 after the FBI report from that year drew similar observations of declining hate crime reporting by police agencies. “The need for improved data collection and reporting is astonishing, and the absence of effective data hamstrings any effective response that we as a nation might have.”

And even though reported hate crime totals in Florida are dropping by the FBI’s count, the bureau’s data shows crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry rising in the state rose from 48 incidents in 2019 to 65 in 2020 — a 35% uptick. The FBI said roughly two of every three hate crimes reported in the U.S. were motivated by race, ethnicity, or ancestry.

Nationally, hate crimes targeting Black people rose by 45% last year compared to the year before. Anti-Asian hate crimes shot up 73% over the same period.

Hate crimes targeting the Jewish community made up about 60% of all religion-based incidents. In 2020, they fell by 29%. About 2.2% of Americans are Jewish, according to the most recent data from the Pew Research Center and U.S. Census Bureau.

The ADL said it plans “in the coming days” to update its interactive hate crime map, which includes links to every hate crime recorded in U.S. history and FBI hate crime data from 2004 to 2019 for all 50 states and cities with more than 100,000 residents.

“As the ADL has said, time and time again, when just one individual is targeted by a hate crime, it negatively impacts the entire community, resulting in marginalized groups rightfully fleeing vulnerable and under siege,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “While these numbers are disturbing on their own, the fact that so many law enforcement agencies did not participate is inexcusable, and the fact that over 60 jurisdictions with populations over 100,000 affirmatively reported zero hate crimes is simply not credible. Data drives policy, and without having a complete picture of the problem, we cannot even begin to resolve the issues driving this surge in hate and violence.”