(1/10) Hate and bias crimes are a national security issue (THREAD)

(2/10) @START_UMD ‘s Domestic Rad team (follow @RaD_UMD) has produced BIAS, a 1st-of-its-kind representative dataset on perps of hate/bias crimes in US. Will be publishing a series of research briefs while longer pieces are in the works. Will publish the BIAS data in the Spring

(3/10) While not an arbitrary intellectual distinction b/t terror & hate crime, there is overlap b/t offenders in PIRUS & BIAS. Hard to know if motivation was to harm just the victim or achieve pysch/political impact on audience beyond victim, & hate crime perps may desire both

(4/10) B/c both are ideologically motivated, perps of terror & hate crime can emerge from the same social networks on and offline which can greatly amplify hate crimes. Even if the act was not intended to have strategic effects, it can have same pysch & political impact as terror

(5/10) Hate & bias crimes create opportunities for malign foreign influence ops to amplify polarization, xenophobia, racism, gender identity violence, anti-Semitism at orders of magnitude more freq than terrorism.

(6/10) Using FBI UCR#s for illustration – 2018 yielded 8496 opportunities for foreign influence ops to target the fabric of our society

(7/10) By bifurcating hate crimes from terrorism, we create misleading threat assessments, warped perspectives, and ultimately poor resource allocation decisions, legal and bureaucratic responses, and fail at the politics of the situation.

(8/10) We also fall victim to systemic racism, undervaluing the victims of hate and bias crimes institutionally, despite the overwhelming difference in #’s of victims, including those killed and injured by hate crimes

(9/10) This failure exacerbates distrust between communities targeted by hate crimes & the criminal justice system/govt, as some lives appear to hold less value than others, which adds to the polarization that can invite foreign influence operations and extremist narratives

(10/10) We must engage in integrated threat assessments of ideologically motivated violence, allocate resources accordingly, & should not mention terrorism without also mentioning hate crimes. “Terrorism & hate crimes” have no place here, & both are national security issues.