Nearly 150% surge in anti-Asian hate crimes across major US cities: Report

 New York City saw the highest jump, rising from 3 to 28, Boston and Los Angeles followed, with increases from 6 to 14, and 7 to 15 respectively

A new study has found that there was nearly a 150 percent surge in anti-Asian hate crimes across major cities in the US in 2020, while overall hate crimes fell by 7 percent.

The study, titled "Report to the Nation: Anti-Asian Prejudice & Hate Crime", has been conducted by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (CSHE) at the California State University, San Bernardino, Xinhua news agency reported.

Based on police department statistics in 16 cities, it will be released later this month, according to the CSHE, which posted fact sheets about the research on the university's official website on Thursday.

New York City saw the highest jump, rising from 3 to 28, Boston and Los Angeles followed, with increases from 6 to 14, and 7 to 15 respectively, the report said, noting that the first spike occurred in March-April 2020 amid a rise in Covid-19 cases and negative stereotyping of Asians relating them to the pandemic.

CBS News on Thursday said that the report could not show the overall picture of hate acts happening across the country since the data cited by the research was limited to crimes reported to local police departments.

More racist attacks aiming at Asians were called "hate incidents", which was defined by the Department of Justice as acts of prejudice that are not crimes.

The number of such attacks was also on the rise last year.

More than 2,800 of these hate incidents targeting Asian-Americans had been reported in 47 states and the District of Columbia since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Stop AAPI Hate, a non-profit group formed in 2020.

AAPI refers to Asia- Americans and Pacific Islanders. The AAPI population in the country was estimated at 24.2 million.