JCPA: 2024 Hate Crimes Data Underscores Crisis of Hate and Extremism

In response to the FBI’s release of its 2024 Hate Crimes Statistics report, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, released the following statement:

“The 2024 hate crimes data underscores what communities across the country already know: we’re facing a crisis of hate and extremism that threatens all of us and the core of our democracy. 

While marking a slight decrease from 2023 – and reflecting the chronic underreporting inherent in this data – the 2024 statistics mark the second highest number of annual hate crimes on record since the FBI began reporting this information in 1991. 

Single-bias anti-Jewish hate crimes comprised 16% of all reported hate crimes and the vast majority (70%) of religion-based incidents in 2024, affirming the real fears and concerns felt in the Jewish community in recent years. This antisemitic hate and violence is coming from all directions: hate crimes targeting visibly-Jewish people walking down the street; increasingly-violent antisemitism targeting Jews because of our real or perceived relationship with Israel, under the guise of protesting the Israeli government’s actions; white supremacist and neo-Nazi extremism that has become normalized over the last decade; and broader, harder to quantify, efforts to marginalize, isolate, and discriminate against Jews in certain spaces. 

We also know that the Jewish community is not alone in our fear. This data underscores that so many others – including the Black, Latino, Asian, Muslim, Sikh, LGBTQ+, and other communities – are also facing frightening levels of hate and violence, as bigotry and dehumanization become more and more pervasive on social media, in our politics, and beyond.

Our communities’ safety is inextricably linked – there is no inclusive democracy without Jewish safety, and no Jewish safety without inclusive democracy. None of us are safe until we truly treat rising hate and extremism – in all its forms – with the seriousness it deserves.

Yet the current administration has terminated or frozen some of the very programs that are critical to protecting Jewish and other faith institutions and to preventing hate crimes in the first place, including: 

• • Freezing – and significantly underresourcing – the vital Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Notice of Funding Opportunities for these critical funds was finally released last week following extensive advocacy, but much more work remains to be done to ensure that faith institutions and other critical organizations can truly access these dollars at such a key moment in the fight against hate and violence.

  • Freezing and terminating millions of dollars in hate crimes prevention grants authorized by the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act and the Shepard-Byrd Act. Among many critical needs, this includes funds necessary to train and empower local police departments to effectively report hate crimes given chronic underreporting.

• • Decimating the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the Department of Education Office tasked with enforcing Title VI, the very statute that protects Jewish and all students’ civil rights on campus and in K-12 schools.

We need to fully fund the programs that help us track and fight hate crimes, work with police and communities to report and respond, and support victims. In addition to restoring the funding terminated for this year, we urge Congress to reject the Administration’s request to end funding for these vital programs, and instead include the following funding levels in next year’s budget:

• • $20 million for the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act program, which supports improved hate crime reporting and response through grants to state and local governments.
  • $40 million for the Community Relations Service (CRS) — a vital Department of Justice agency that works directly with communities to mediate conflict and reduce hate-fueled violence.
  • $30 million for Community Approaches to Advancing Justice grants, which support prevention efforts, victim services, and community preparedness.
  • $25 million for the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which helps jurisdictions investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
  • $13.5 million for the Emmett Till Cold Case Investigations and Prosecution Program, which provides resources for investigating unresolved civil rights-era hate crimes.

Building the democratic resilience that we need to prevent hate and extremism in the first place also requires a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. That includes investing in proven programs to counter domestic extremism; advancing digital and media literacy and proven educational programs, to inoculate against susceptibility to hate and extremism online and in the real world; and building the broad, bipartisan, and cross-community coalitions we need to reject hate and extremism in all their forms.”