The United States Hate Crime Project

There is no doubt that the patterns that gave rise to the concept of “hate crimes” have been around since the social construction of alterity emerged amidst human intergroups (Boeckmann & Turpin-Petrosino, 2002). The pluralistic concept has its varying definitions in the fields of social psychology, criminology, and legal studies. However, its most conceptually palpable difference is in its experiential definition or meaning between perpetrator and victim/survivor. This definitional problematic resists a notion of a proper representation within any digital project because it attempts to quantify subjective experience of hate. However, that is not to say that efforts to represent--both as in political representation that gives voice to the voiceless and re-presentation as a reproduction of the subject--cannot be attempted in good faith. This digital humanities project attempts to re-present “hate crimes” as both a subject at large and the subjects involved from data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The process entails a capturing of a selection of the FBI data, human interpretation, and finally the production of the subject in visual form. In addition, the process of reviewing the data collected by the FBI renders a legible text of the organization of the government as an institution more broadly. For example, by noting not only what data is made available but what data is absent, values, priorities, and other aspects become apparent.

I. The Increase of Reported Hate Crime Incidents in 2001

It is clear that impactful cultural events spike the hate crime incidents reported, though it is not clear that increases in reported hate crime incidents are due to an increase in committed hate crimes. It is important to recognize the difference between incidents reported and incidents committed. In the graphic representation of the FBI’s UCR reports, the graphs tell an interesting narrative of the rise and fall of hate crime incidents reported to the FBI, three phenomena stick out in our analysis: the year of 2001, the steady increase of hate crime from 2015 to 2017, the low rates of hate crime incidents of deep south states. To explain the trends seen in the graphs cultural analysis and research was done to contextualize these sociological occurrences. Ultimately, we argue that large cultural events like 9/11 have sparked a cultural bias that has led to a hyper-aware state of reporting and data collection. This hyper aware state of collection is fueled by discursive phenomena such as the spread of hate speech, historical resonance impacting today’s cultural norms, and the impactful nature of open communication that has been made possible by the internet and the 24/7 news media.

II. The Steady Increase of Reported Hate Crime Incidents from 2015 to 2017

The UCR hate crime data shows a continual increase of hate crime incident reports from 2015 to 2017 (the last year of data that was used in our analysis). This increase is seen for incidents motivated by bias against race, religion, and the category of gender identity, gender, and disability. On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump officially announced his candidacy for president. Since his campaign, President Trump has been sited for hateful rhetoric and bias comments towards “the other,” typically underrepresented minorities. Cambridge University conducted a study and found that “[w]hile some observers have explained Trump’s success as a result of economic anxiety, the data demonstrate that anti-immigrant sentiment, racism, and sexism are much more strongly related to support for Trump.” As the Cambridge study notes, Trump’s discourse has focused on anti-immigrant sentiment, racism, and sexism, all categories in which the UCR data and our data visualizations show large increases from 2015 to 2017. Whether or not an individual agrees with President Trump’s blatant discursive approach, it is clear that American culture has been permeated by the continual discussion of hate speech during his presidency. This amplification of discourse surrounding bias and hate speech has clearly impacted awareness, and has likely changed the perception of what incidents constitute a hate crime.

III. The Low Rates of Hate Crime Incidents of Deep South States

The bar graph of hate crime incidents rates from 1997 to 2017 depicts Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama with the smallest percentage of reported hate crime incidents. The south has a fraught history of racially motivated crimes and segregation. From the abhorrent 16th Street Baptist Church bombing to the Selma Civil Rights demonstrations, the history of racial tensions in the south is inescapable. While violent crime rates are the highest in southern states compared to the rest of the country, it’s peculiar that hate crimes don’t mirror these trends especially with the history of racial tensions within these southern states. Although, a cultural phenomena is likely the cause of these minute hate crime incident percentages. The crimes perpetrated in the south have a different character than other areas of the country. This characteristic is the personalized nature of the crime, for example, “many murders are of a personal and traditional nature: a barroom brawl, a quarrel between acquaintances or a fight between lovers.” The personalized nature of crime means the crimes are likely not being recorded by hate crimes, because crimes committed because of a personal connection is outweighing the definition of a crime committed by motivated biases. This depicts the limitations of the hate crime data collected, the inflexibility of the collection of multiple motives beyond just personal motivations or bias motivations, may be a major loss in data collection.

Furthermore, a disparity in hate crime data can be equated to the relationship between the police and black Americans. The African American community has had a difficult and complicated history with the police and the criminal justice system, from the black lives matter movement to the large racial disparities in American prisons. A Pew Research Center survey found, “around nine-in-ten black adults (87%) said blacks are generally treated less fairly by the criminal justice system than whites, a view shared by a much smaller majority of white adults (61%).” This lack of trust in the justice system can be discursively seen, at clearly affects the willingness of victims to report hate crime incidents. The disparity of hate crime reports can be attributed to this lack of trust, with Alabama having a black population of 26%, Mississippi with 37.5%, and Louisiana with 32.2%, with a comparison of the rest of the country having a black population of 12.6%. It is probable states with larger African American communities are less likely to report hate crime incidents because of their attenuated relationship with police departments. Furthermore, tensions are likely fueled by discursive acts like that of police violence against black individuals that are shared across the nation. The ability to communicate and share views instantly has shaped cultural phenomena and inturn impacted the reporting of data.