Mediaboss Marketing

Hate crimes and reports of bias-motivated incidents rose for the third straight year amid the global pandemic and periods of racial unrest in New Jersey, data released by the New Jersey State Police and Division on Civil Rights shows.

The Garden State saw 1,871 reported bias incidents in 2021, according to preliminary data made public on Friday. Thats a 29% increase from 2020, which saw 1,447.

Part of that increase comes from streamlined reporting practices in recent years and better awareness among the public, but social and political turmoil was also a major contributor, authorities said.

Its unacceptable and I want all of New Jerseys residents to know were tackling it head-on, acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin told NJ Advance Media on Friday.

The 2021 data is preliminary, but investigators at the Division on Civil Rights also dug into the 2019 and 2020 data and found the global pandemic, backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement and the contentious 2020 presidential election all contributed to the rise, authorities said.

State data shows the trajectory of reported bias incidents in New Jersey over the years.

The events of 2020 could not go unexplored or unexplained, Aarin Michele Williams, the interim head of strategic initiatives and enforcement at the division, wrote in an introduction to the report.

Read the full report here.

These numbers represent people, families, and our communities. Our family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors are being terrorized, dehumanized, and excluded by people who feel empowered to inflict this harm and violence, Williams said.

Hate crimes and bias incidents are rising nationally, though it is difficult to compare New Jerseys numbers with other states because, overall, bias incident reporting remains inconsistent in other jurisdictions. New Jersey overhauled its guidelines for how departments investigate and report hate crimes in 2019.

Anti-Black bias remained the number-one motivating factor in reported incidents in both 2020 and 2021, with anti-Jewish bias being the second-largest contributor, according to the state data.

New Jerseys LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender New Jerseyans, experienced a significant increase in bias incidents over that same period. And Anti-Asian incidents, while representing 6 percent of the incidents overall in 2021, rose sharply from 69 in 2020 to 129 in 2021.

Authorities said they attributed at least some of these spikes to increasingly hostile rhetoric targeting gay and transgender people, blaming Asian countries for COVID-19 and backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement.

Theres no question that the rhetoric out there is having a real-world impact, Platkin said. People need to be careful with the language then are using, because these are not empty words.

Bias incidents are defined as suspected or confirmed offenses motivated by a victims perceived or actual race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, gender identity or gender expression.

The incidents contained in the Attorney Generals report are based on bias incident reports submitted by every law enforcement agency in the state.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com.

Visit link:
Hate crimes, bias incidents in N.J. spiked again in 2021 for third year in a row - NJ.com