NYC Hate Crimes

Background

Similar to shootings, hate crimes in NYC have increased since the start of Covid-19. I used NYC Open Data to pull publicly available data from the New York Police Department (NYPD) on hate crimes to take a closer look.

Method

Upon seeing the data, I realized there are various ways to categorize hate crimes including by offense category and bias motive description. Instead of comparing year-over-year numbers, I decided to look at both daily counts and totals since January 1, 2019.

Caveat

As with most data, these findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Visuals can only be as reliable as the data used to make them. In the case of this hate crime data, I am not aware of the NYPD’s process for categorizing hate crimes. While I trust the data enough to make example visuals, I have no insight into how many hate crimes are not captured in this data either due to not being reported, or not having enough evidence to officially rule it a hate crime.

Simplistic total depiction by offense category

I first created the below area plot to get an overall sense of which hate crime categories have been most prevalent since January 1, 2019.

Chronological daily count heatmap

Next, I wanted to see if hate crime frequency had changed over the past 2.5 years. Between March 2020 and February 2021, there were fewer hate crimes as most people were likely staying indoors more than average. Since March 2021, hate crimes have become more frequent than at any other period since January 2019. This coincides with vaccination rollout, more people returning to work, and warmer temperatures enticing people outside.

*The heatmap below is interactive. To see daily hate crime totals simply hover over any colored data point.

Chronological depiction of hate crimes by category and bias motive

The plot below depicts another way to view hate crimes chronologically. While daily counts aren’t visually emphasized (as they are in the previous plot), the data is still available in the hover text. Instead, the focus is primarily on the type of hate crime. Hate crimes are colored by offense category and aligned along the y-axis by bias motive.

This new view makes it clear that Anti-Jewish hate crimes are consistent throughout the period. Additionally, Anti-Asian hate crimes increased in early 2020 (coinciding with the beginning of Covid-19), while Anti-Black hate crimes were frequent during the summer of 2020 (coinciding with an increase in BLM and other related protests).

*The below plot is interactive.

Geographical depiction of hate crimes and bias motive

Using a similar plot type to the one above, I wanted to view hate crimes by geographical area. New York City is divided into 77 precincts, but for the sake of this plot, I decided to group the precincts into the NYPD’s eight patrol boroughs.

Chronological information has been removed, while raw counts of hate crimes have been visually added (as depicted by bubble size). Unlike prior plots, this one gives a sense of where hate crimes are occurring rather than when.

Many Anti-Jewish hate crimes occurred in PBBS and PBBN, where there are multiple Jewish neighborhoods. Similarly, a large portion of Anti-Asian hate crimes were in PBMS, which contains Chinatown and Koreatown.

Patrol Borough mapping: PBMS (Manhattan South), PBMN (Manhattan North), PBBX (Bronx), PBBS (Brooklyn South), PBBN (Brooklyn North), PBQS (Queens South), PBQN (Queens North), PBSI (Staten Island)

*The below plot is interactive.