Hate crimes on rise in San Diego as overall crime rates drop: SDPD

Danielle Dawson
·2 min read
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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The number of reported hate crimes in San Diego nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023, according to annual data released by the San Diego Police Department on Monday.

The uptick comes at a time when overall crime rates fell slightly last year and appear to be trending downward when compared with three-year averages.

In 2023, there were 66 hate crimes, which include targeted attacks against individuals for their ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion, reported to SDPD, representing an increase of about 73 percent.

Incidents against individuals based on their ethnicity accounted for the largest share of reported hate crimes both in 2022 and 2023. According to SDPD, there were 25 hate crimes in 2023 against people of color in particular, rising slightly from the 20 reported in 2022.

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Anti-Black bias accounted for more than half of these ethnicity-based hate crimes, SDPD said, while prejudice against mixed race and Hispanic individuals accounted for 16% and 12% of these cases, respectively.

However, incidents targeting individuals based on their sexuality had the largest uptick year-over-year with more than five times the number of cases reported to SDPD. According to the report, there were 21 sexuality-based hate crime incidents in 2023, jumping from four in 2022.

Hate crimes based on religious beliefs also saw a major increase between numbers reported in 2022 and 2023, more than quadrupling year-over-year. According to SDPD, 18 religious belief-based hate crimes were reported in 2023, rising from four in 2022.

More than half of the religious belief-based hate crime incidents reported were rooted in antisemitism, SDPD said.

“Crimes against persons,” which includes hate crimes, murder, rape and assault, had the smallest decrease between 2022 and 2023 compared to those involving property or those against society. According to SDPD, 13,409 crimes against persons were reported in 2022 and 13,395 were reported in 2023 — a 0.1 percent decrease.

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Murder had the highest number of incidents — 84.4 percent — in this catergory that were solved with an arrest in 2023, SDPD said.

Across all categories, the highest number of cases cleared with an arrest in 2023 were associated with prostitution, narcotics or alcohol violations, as well as “quality-of-life” crimes like curfew, loitering, disorderly conduct and vagrancy. All had arrest rates above 98 percent.

Car prowl, vehicle theft and “other sex offenses” had the lowest percent of cases that were cleared by an arrest in 2023, according to SDPD, with 1.6 percent, 5.4 percent and 5.9 percent respectively.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and SDPD Chief David Nisleit are set to discuss this and other findings detailed the department’s annual crime report in a press conference Tuesday morning.

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