When actor Jussie Smollett reported a racist and homophobic attack to the Chicago Police Department last month, he appeared to be one of an estimated 250,000 people targeted in hate crimes every year in the United States—although not all of them experience the level of violence Smollett described.
Now, law enforcement says that Smollett did not experience it at all: On Wednesday, the Empire actor was charged with felony disorderly conduct for making an allegedly false report, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
As the news spread, many (including the president) were quick to criticize Smollett, or simply amplify this instance of alleged false reporting, which is actually very rare. Researchers who track hate crimes have found that the more common problem isn’t false reports; if anything, it’s underreporting. In fact, the number of hate crimes has spiked dramatically since 2016—and these numbers are likely much higher than what’s represented in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s database.
Here’s the context that’s sometimes left out of this conversation….