L.A. County Hate Crimes In Decline
While hate crimes and anti-Semitism seems more prevalent around the country, Los Angeles County has actually seen a decrease in the number of hate crimes since 2001.
According to reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 939 active hate groups in the United States in 2013.
In California there are 77, the highest number in the nation. In Los Angeles, there are two active white supremacist groups, including the Loyal White Knights, a sect of the Ku Klux Klan.
However, the presence and the activity of these groups should not cause immediate concern because the groups who claim to have a presence are not as active as they appear, said Marshall Wong, a hate crime coordinator who studies hate crimes for the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations.
“I don’t think people should be panicked,” Wong said. “It’s not representative of this upsurge of this hate activity.”
Wong said the event in Kansas was an aberration and that even with surveillance of white supremacist activities online, it would be hard to predict an exact outcome.
However, there are ways of combatting the success of hate groups and hate crimes. By educating children at a young age and by raising awareness in communities about diversity, it can help deter a hateful environment.
Looking at hate crimes in Los Angeles, a crime report published in 2012 shows there has been a general trend in decreasing hate crime rates.
The main groups often targeted are African Americans, lesbians and gays, Jews and Latinos, Wong said. Together they constituted 86 percent of hate crimes in 2012.
“There are many people who grow up without black classmates and as a result, the information they get might come from the mass media or what their parents tell them or what their peers tell them,” Wong said. “When you don’t have direct contact, it’s easy to develop stereotypes.”
In Los Angeles County, there has been a decline in white supremacist values, according to the 2012 crime report.
The report stated, “Evidence of white supremacist ideology declined from 21% to 16% of all hate crimes.”
“Fortunately, only 15% of anti-Jewish crimes are of a violent nature,” Wong said.
A more pressing issue relative to LA’s diverse population is the conflict the group of Latinos and immigrants experience. Some of the factors that affect the perception of certain groups come from the influences in the environment, such as politicians or the mass media.
An example of one of these factors is “when politicians make speeches calling undocumented immigrants illegal aliens,” Wong said. “It can whip up a lot of hostility and intolerance that helps feed the climate of intolerance.”
For a place as diverse as Los Angeles, the racial divides that exist in neighborhoods can also be a breeding ground for discrimination.
While the county has seen as significant decrease in hate crimes, Wong said training police officers to identify hate crimes can help prevent any more hateful acts.
“One hate crime is too many,” Wong said.
Reach Staff Reporter Phillomina Wong here.