Police Clearance of Hate Crimes against Asian Americans During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study

• In Event: Understanding and Addressing Hate Crimes and Discrimination

Abstract

The surge in anti-Asian sentiment and xenophobic attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus the vulnerabilities faced by Asian American communities and highlighted the urgent need to address bias-motivated hate crimes and ensure accountability within the criminal justice system in the United States. This research utilizes data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) spanning from 2020 to 2022 to examine the police clearance rate of anti-Asian hate crimes by comparing it with those of hate crimes against other racial-ethnic groups. The examination explores various factors that may influence clearance rates, including victim and offender characteristics, offense nature, situational conditions, community contextual factors, and police organizational dynamics. While the analysis reveals no statistically significant difference in the clearance rates between Asian victims and those of other races and ethnicities, it uncovers a range of influential factors of the rates at both the incident and community levels that significantly vary between the racial-ethnic groups.

Authors

• Yan Zhang, Sam Houston State University

• Lening Zhang, Sant Francis University