This bill adds a new requirement to Section 505 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. It directs the Attorney General to create, within 3 years, a method to evaluate whether certain local governments are credibly reporting hate crimes using data collected under the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. The evaluation must check, for each year, whether a covered jurisdiction either did not report hate crime data to the FBI or reported zero hate crime incidents.
If a covered jurisdiction is found not to credibly report for a year, it will not be eligible for an allocation under this section for the following fiscal year. A “covered jurisdiction” means a unit of local government that requested a grant under this subpart and has a population over 100,000.
The Attorney General may exempt a jurisdiction from losing eligibility if the jurisdiction is certified as having conducted significant community public education and awareness initiatives on hate crimes. The bill defines that certification by listing qualifying actions, including making substantial progress on reporting, adopting policies on identifying/investigating/reporting hate crimes, developing a standardized system to collect and report hate crimes to the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), establishing a specialized unit or liaison, or holding regular public meetings or educational forums.
The Attorney General must also publish an annual online report listing jurisdictions that received the certification. The bill defines “hate crime” by reference to the Hate Crime Statistics Act and by including acts that violate specific federal statutes (18 U.S.C. 241, 245, 247, and 249).
No publicly available information on costs or budget effects is included in the bill text. The bill requires the Attorney General to establish an evaluation method and publish annual reports, but it does not provide cost estimates or specify funding.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.