WASHINGTON, D.C. – Attorneys General Karl A. Racine (D-DC) and Derek Schmidt (R-KS) today led a bipartisan coalition of 35 attorneys general urging Congress to pass the bipartisan Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, which would provide state and local governments and law enforcement agencies with the tools and resources to understand, identify, and report hate crimes and, as a result, help prevent them.
The legislation specifically aims to help rectify inaccurate and incomplete data by providing federal grants to improve hate crimes reporting. The grants would be used to train employees on identifying, classifying, and reporting hate crimes in the FBI’s national database; assist with states’ development of programs to prevent hate crimes; increase community education around hate crimes; and create state-run hate crime hotlines.
“For more than two decades, thousands of city, county, college and university, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies have voluntarily submitted hate crimes data to the FBI,” wrote the attorneys general. “However, based on the FBI’s 2019 report, most law enforcement agencies did not participate or reported zero incidents. Exacerbating this gap, less than 25% of law enforcement agencies are using the FBI’s current reporting system, which took effect this year. This lack of data creates critical gaps that inhibit our understanding of the hate problem. As the chief legal officers of our respective jurisdictions and states, improving hate crimes reporting is a priority. Without reliable statistics, the government cannot properly understand, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes or provide necessary resources to survivors.”
As president of the National Association of Attorneys General, AG Racine launched a yearlong initiative in December 2020 called the People v. Hate. The initiative aims to raise awareness of hate and bias, prevent hate from taking root in our communities, support residents who have experienced hate, and develop and share best practices on improving hate crime data.
AG Racine co-led this letter with AG Schmidt, and they were joined by the attorneys general of Alaska, American Samoa, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, N. Mariana Islands, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
A copy of the coalition’s letter to Congress is available here and the full text is below.
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Dear Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer, Minority Leader McConnell, and Minority Leader McCarthy,
From coast to coast, incidents of hate, extremism, and bias-motivated crimes are on the rise. The FBI’s most recent annual report on hate crime statistics shows that 2019 was the deadliest year on record, and the total number of hate crimes reported to the FBI increased for the fourth time in five years.1 Bias-motivated violence divides American society, terrorizes communities, and ultimately threatens the rights and security of all Americans.
As Attorneys General, we are on the frontlines of protecting public safety and ensuring that everyone in our jurisdiction can live their lives free of hate and discrimination. We write today in support of the “National Opposition to Hate, Assaults, and Threats to Equality ‘NO HATE’ Act.” While the bill will not solve America’s hate problem, it addresses one crucial aspect of it: the lack of data to understand its pervasiveness.
For more than two decades, thousands of city, county, college and university, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies have voluntarily submitted hate crimes data to the FBI. However, based on the FBI’s 2019 report, most law enforcement agencies did not participate or reported zero incidents. Exacerbating this gap, less than 25% of law enforcement agencies are using the FBI’s current reporting system, which took effect this year. This lack of data creates critical gaps that inhibit our understanding of the hate problem.
As the chief legal officers of our respective jurisdictions and states, improving hate crimes reporting is a priority. Without reliable statistics, the government cannot properly understand, investigate, and prosecute hate crimes or provide necessary resources to survivors.
This legislation, supported by law enforcement officials from both federal and state levels, provides states and localities with the tools needed to effectively identify and combat hate crimes and engage directly with affected communities. Specifically, the legislation, if passed, will incentivize hate crimes reporting by providing federal grants to state and local government to train law enforcement on hate crimes and the use of the FBI’s national hate crimes database, to create reporting hotlines, to increase resources for community engagement and public educational forums on hate crimes.
Managed through the Department of Justice, these grants empower state and local governments to improve hate crimes reporting. In exchange for receiving grants, state and local governments must provide additional information pertaining to hate crimes in their jurisdiction. The bill also amends the penalties for federal hate crimes to allow courts to require those who break the law to engage in education about or service to the affected communities as a condition of their supervised release.
We request that Congress pass the NO HATE Act as a significant step toward addressing the hate crime problem. If we do not understand the full scope of the problem, we cannot effectively work to counter it. This bill provides the critical information we need to achieve that understanding, and we therefore strongly encourage members of Congress to support it.