While the reputation of Livingston County in general and Howell in particular as hotbeds of discrimination and racism appears to be never-ending, a look at the hate crime statistics of surrounding southeast Michigan counties paints a much different picture.
According to statistics from crime reports compiled by the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office and sent along to the FBI, the county’s rate of incidents classified as “anti-African American bias” is the lowest of the 8 counties in the region.
A look at the total number of crimes classified as bias/hate crimes in Livingston County over the last 10 years also ranks it as one of the lowest in the region, as shown by the chart above.
Wayne County led the way, with 1,670 hate crimes in the past decade, followed by Oakland County at 696, Genesee County at 507, Ingham County at 374, Washtenaw County at 373, Jackson County at 125, Livingston County at 122, and Shiawassee County at 84.
When the number of crimes over the past decade are extrapolated out using the 2020 U.S. Census numbers for an apples-to-apples comparison, leading the pack over the past decade is Washtenaw County with a per capita rate of 34 such incidents per 100,000 residents, while Livingston County has the lowest rate of 4.5 per 100,000 residents. (Both charts above illustrate the same general information, with the first having a bit more detail.)
The chart above breaks down the various categories in which bias/hate crimes in Livingston County are reported by the Sheriff’s Department to the FBI. Livingston County had 9 anti-African American crimes in the past decade, the highest of every individual category for the county (followed closely by anti-female crimes at 8), while the vast majority of the crimes landed under the umbrella of “other bias.”
