A police department statistics analysis discovered a massive surge of Asian-biased crimes across the United States in multiple major cities last year.
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism based at California State University, San Bernardino, released the results. The study monitored hate crimes in 16 large cities across the country. It revealed that while racially-biased crimes have dropped by 7% in 2020, those that targeted Asian residents spiked by more than 150%.
Anti-Asian Crimes
The founder and director of demographic data and policy research non-profit AAPI Data, Karthick Ramakrishnan, said former President Donald Trump’s administration, while not fully responsible for the rise of Asian American-centered crimes, have contributed to it.
The former president’s administration made frequent racist rhetoric about the coronavirus pandemic. The previous handling of the COVID-19 virus and the focus on its origin in China, even being dubbed as the “China virus,” helped fuel hate towards the Asian community, NBC Bay Area reported.
The researchers discovered a massive spike in anti-Asian hate crimes in cities such as New York, rising from a measly three cases in 2019 up to 28 in 2020, an enormous 833% increase. Los Angeles and Boston also saw an uptick in the racially-specific hate crimes, rising from seven to 15 and six to 14, respectively.
