The latest research found that hate crimes increased by nine percent to 2,009 cases in the 30 cities surveyed by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (CSHE) at California State University San Bernardino, which released the report on Tuesday (July 30).

It revealed that the surge in hate crimes marks the steepest rise since 2015 and the fifth increase in consecutive years.

This increase comes despite overall crimes decreasing in the cities examined, according to the report.

The publication showed that the most common hate crime victims reported to police in major cities in 2018 were LGBT+ people, Jews and black people.

While the research found that extremist homicides “decreased markedly” in 2018 to 22, it said that the most frequent hate killings were carried out by white nationalists and those in the far right, with these murders increasing to 17 2018 up from 13 the year before.

LGBTQ, Jewish and black people most common hate crime victims in 2018, says report

Jewish people were the direct target of half of the extremist murders in 2018, which the report said was the “worst year ever for anti-Semitic killings in the United States.”

It concluded there was a spike in hate-motivated murders occurred around political events, such as the mid-term elections.

“The overwhelming majority of declining extremist domestic homicides in 2018 were by white nationalist/far right sole assailants who attacked around the mid-term elections,” reads the report.

“Thus, the risk of extremist violence by them will likely continue into this current nascent political season, around catalytic events in campaigns, international conflicts, terrorism,
and heated rhetoric.”

PinkNews has contacted CSHE for comment.

In 2018, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) recorded at least 26 killings of trans people in the USA.

The overwhelming majority of declining extremist domestic homicides in 2018 were by white nationalist/far right sole assailants.

The figures come as research suggests that hate crimes are on the rise internationally.

In the UK, it was recently revealed that homophobic and transphobic hate crimes have more than doubled in the past four years, according to analysis carried out by the Guardian.