New U.S. Report Finds Schools Third-Most Common Hate Crime Location

A federal report released on 29 January revealed that schools are a common location where a hate crime occurs in the United States. 

On Monday, the FBI released its first thorough analysis of hate crimes that occurred at U.S. schools. While residential locations and roadways were in the top two slots respectively among hate crime locations, elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities were revealed as the third-most common locations for these crimes from 2018 through 2022.

“During these five years, over 30 percent of juvenile victims of hate crimes experienced the offense at school, and nearly 36 percent of juvenile offenders of hate crime committed the offense at school,” the report said. Data for the report, Reported Hate Crime at Schools: 2018-2022, was provided by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which collects and publishes data on incidents of hate crimes, along with the Bureau’s National Incident-Based Reporting System.

Throughout the nation, hate crimes increased during this time period, from 8,492 offenses reported in 2018 to 13,346 reported in 2022. During those five years, more than 4,300 hate crimes were reported as occurring in schools.

Although the number of hate crimes in schools decreased from 2019 (911 offenses) to 2020 (500 offenses), the report said that the decrease may be credited to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and several schools initiating online learning during that time.

Between 2020 and 2022, the number of hate crimes in an academic setting more than doubled, climbing up to 1,336 offenses. Year after year, elementary and secondary schools were the category where the majority of these crimes occurred.

During these five years, “the most common bias type of reported hate crime offenses at schools was Anti-Black or African American, with 1,690 reported hate crime offenses involving this bias type,” according to the report. Anti-Jewish incidents (745 offenses) and hate crimes targeting gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individuals (767 offenses) were also noteworthy in the report.

Among the types of hate crimes, intimidation was the most common (1,623 offenses), then destruction or damage or vandalism (1,543), and lastly simple assault (826). And in terms of frequency, data revealed that the period between October through December was the most common time for a hate crime to occur in schools.