Estimated Cost of Hate Crimes to Phoenix Residents in 2022 Between $39 and $160 Million, Reports Bard Center for the Study of Hate and Anti-Defamation League’s Desert Region
Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Thomas Eddy (detail)
The Bard Center for the Study of Hate (BCSH), in partnership with the ADL Desert Region, has released a new report: The Societal Impacts of Hate Crimes: A Case Study. What emerges from this study is a staggering cost–the estimate for the “hate tax” on Phoenix residents from hate crime in 2022 is between $39 million and $160 million.
Building on the groundbreaking work of Bard Associate Professor of Economics Michael Martell, and his 2023 analysis of the “Economic Costs of Hate Crimes,” the ADL Desert Region’s GRACE Committee (Government Relations Advocacy and Community Engagement Committee) sought to quantify the costs of hate crimes in Phoenix for the year in 2022. Using Martell’s model, and assisted by BCSH summer intern Mimla Wardak, the GRACE committee reached out to leaders in Phoenix to gather data, but also to discuss the various costs associated with hate crime, such as the need to use money that could otherwise have supported community projects on infrastructure security instead.
This joint project, led by BCSH director Kenneth Stern and ADL- Desert Region’s GRACE Committee chair Bob Braudy, was designed as a model that other communities in the US and abroad can use too.
In a joint statement, Stern and Braudy emphasized the broader implications of the report. Stern and Braudy said, “Hate crimes reverberate in any community, and we think of the moral costs associated with them, as well as the legal implications. But calculating and underscoring the societal costs is a critical project, not only to remind people of the financial costs of hate crimes, but also highlighting the things that community groups and others might otherwise accomplish to benefit everyone if millions didn’t have to be diverted because of the costs of hate crimes.”
The next step in Phoenix involves the use of the report for meetings with community groups, government officials, and others, to plan together how to reduce these costs.
BCSH is willing to help other communities design their own assessments, and follow-up plans. Contact BCSH director Kenneth Stern at [email protected].
Post Date: 04-11-2025
Building on the groundbreaking work of Bard Associate Professor of Economics Michael Martell, and his 2023 analysis of the “Economic Costs of Hate Crimes,” the ADL Desert Region’s GRACE Committee (Government Relations Advocacy and Community Engagement Committee) sought to quantify the costs of hate crimes in Phoenix for the year in 2022. Using Martell’s model, and assisted by BCSH summer intern Mimla Wardak, the GRACE committee reached out to leaders in Phoenix to gather data, but also to discuss the various costs associated with hate crime, such as the need to use money that could otherwise have supported community projects on infrastructure security instead.
This joint project, led by BCSH director Kenneth Stern and ADL- Desert Region’s GRACE Committee chair Bob Braudy, was designed as a model that other communities in the US and abroad can use too.
In a joint statement, Stern and Braudy emphasized the broader implications of the report. Stern and Braudy said, “Hate crimes reverberate in any community, and we think of the moral costs associated with them, as well as the legal implications. But calculating and underscoring the societal costs is a critical project, not only to remind people of the financial costs of hate crimes, but also highlighting the things that community groups and others might otherwise accomplish to benefit everyone if millions didn’t have to be diverted because of the costs of hate crimes.”
The next step in Phoenix involves the use of the report for meetings with community groups, government officials, and others, to plan together how to reduce these costs.
BCSH is willing to help other communities design their own assessments, and follow-up plans. Contact BCSH director Kenneth Stern at [email protected].
Post Date: 04-11-2025