Law & Order Spin-Off Will Tackle The Rise in Hate Crimes Reported Under Trump

Art will be imitating life in the new NBC spin-off, Law and Order: Hate Crimes.

The day after Trump was elected into office, the FBI released data indicating that hate crimes showed a marked increase. While the full data from 2017 have yet to been released, the FBI saw an increase in hate crimes in 2016 throughout the United States. Members of pretty much all marginalized communities, but especially Muslims, Jews, and LGBTQ folks, are facing higher rates of violence than we've seen in recent years.

That's why Law & Order creator Dick Wolf decided to create the Hate Crimes spin-off. He said in a statement, "As with all of my crime shows, I want to depict what's really going on in our cities and shine a light on the wide-ranging victims."

However, unlike in many real cases, he wants to "show that justice can prevail."

The series creator continued, "20 years ago when SVU began, very few people felt comfortable coming forward and reporting these crimes, but when you bring the stories into people's living rooms... a real dialogue can begin. That's what I hope we can do with this new show in a world where hate crimes have reached an egregious level."

We can expect to see Law & Order: Hate Crimes episodes sometime in 2019 on NBC.