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Hate Crime Reporting Hate crime reporting was originally instituted to
provide communities with an early warning sign of intergroup tensions. Optimally, a community would be able to identify trends of increasing conflict between two groups of people and determine where it is
occurring. The Los Angeles County Human Relations
Commission has conducted these analyses of its yearly
reports and is drawing information that not only
directs its efforts at addressing potential intergroup
conflicts before they develop, but is also being
used to develop recommendations for the Board of
Supervisors and others in the county to use in planning
decisions and resource allocations.
Hate crime
reporting still has a long way to go before it becomes
simply another crime reporting category. Some law enforcement agencies resist reporting hate crimes. There
is little political or financial inducements for
law enforcement agencies to report hate crimes. Reports of hate crime are often counterproductive to the image a community is trying to
promote; and, unlike efforts to address drug trafficking and youth gangs, federal and state moneys have not been allocated to local communities to promote better identification and response.
Many law enforcement
agencies that make hate crime reporting a priority do so because it fosters better relationships with the communities they serve and it surfaces problems that need to be addressed. CAHRO has been working to
strengthen links between communities, schools and law enforcement to report and respond to hate crimes.
Hate
crimes and hate violence are also documented by private
organizations who want to monitor the level of hate
directed towards their constituents. The
B'nai B'rith Antidefamation League has the longest
history of measuring the incidence of hate crimes,
particularly those directed against people or institutions
because they are Jewish. In recent years
they have been joined by the National Gay Lesbian
Task Force and by the Asian Pacific American Legal
Consortium. Within California the Los Angeles
County Human Relations Commission was the first
non-law enforcement public agency to take reports
of hate crimes. Their
lead has been followed by (from south to north) the
San Diego Hate Crimes Registry which is a joint project
of the city's human relations commission and the
B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the Orange County
Human Relations Commission, the Santa Barbara County
Human Relations Commission, the Santa Clara County
Human Relations Commission, the Sonoma County Human
Relations Commission, and the Sacramento Fair
Housing and Human Relations Commission. The
Humboldt County Human Relations Commission, Fresno
Metro-Ministries, and the Kern County Human Relations
Commission are all developing hate crime reporting
systems. The
advantage of a non-law enforcement agency being involved
in accepting reports of incidents of hate crime is
that they will often get reports from people who
are hesitant to report them to law enforcement agencies,
and they can also take reports of incidents that
may not be hate crimes, but still provide indications
of intergroup tensions within a community.
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