LOS ANGELES — Academic researchers will present new findings on the hidden economic costs of hate crimes and underreporting patterns at a quarterly meeting of the Network Against Hate Crime on Aug. 12.
The hybrid meeting, hosted by the L.A. County Commission on Human Relations, will feature presentations on economic frameworks for measuring hate crime costs and methods for identifying unreported incidents through digital data analysis.
Michael Martell, associate professor and chair of economics at Bard College, will present research on the economic impact of hate crimes. Martell’s recent work estimates that the measurable annual cost of hate crimes is nearly $3.4 billion, with the actual cost likely much higher, according to the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.
Two law professors will address gaps in hate crime reporting data. Dhammika Dharmapala of UC Berkeley School of Law and Aziz Huq of the University of Chicago will present research using Google search data to reveal likely underreported hate crimes.
Their research addresses the “missing data” problem by imputing unreported hate crimes using Google search rates for racial epithets, according to their published study in the Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis. The method helps identify jurisdictions where hate crimes may be significantly underreported.
The meeting comes as Los Angeles County faces record-high hate crime numbers. Reported hate crimes in LA County increased 45% from 930 to 1,350 incidents in 2023, the largest number in the history of the county’s annual report. Since 1980, the LA County Commission on Human Relations has produced annual hate crime reports using data from law enforcement agencies, schools and community organizations.
Dharmapala joined Berkeley Law in 2023 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was the Paul H. and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law. Huq is a scholar of US and comparative constitutional law whose recent work concerns democratic backsliding and AI regulation.
The presentations will take place from 10 a.m. to noon at the commission’s building at 510 South Vermont Avenue in the Terrace Level Conference Room. Attendees can also participate online through Microsoft Teams.
The Network Against Hate Crime brings together community organizations, law enforcement and researchers to address hate crime prevention and response. The quarterly meetings provide forums for sharing research, data and strategies for combating hate incidents across the county.
The commission launched the LA vs Hate Anti-Hate Initiative in 2018 following a motion by county supervisors to protect vulnerable communities from hate crimes. The program provides a free, confidential hotline for victims and witnesses to report hate incidents through LAvsHate.org or by calling 2-1-1.
Recent county data shows concerning trends across multiple communities. Black people are the most frequent targets of reported hate crimes in the county, while anti-Asian hate crimes reached the highest total ever recorded and anti-immigrant hate crimes hit a historic high, according to the commission’s latest annual report.
The academic presentations aim to provide tools for better understanding both the scope and impact of hate crimes in communities where traditional reporting methods may capture only a fraction of actual incidents.
