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"Preventing Hate and Keeping You Up to Date"
October 2023
The Hate Crimes Training and Technical Assistance Program Newsletter Preventing Hate and Keeping You Up to Date is a monthly summary of research, articles, site highlights, and more. This publication is provided for program awardees' and project partners' information and awareness. Please contact info@hatecrimestta.org to submit a success story or resource for consideration in the newsletter.
General News
Eradicate Hate Global Summit: The World’s Most Comprehensive Anti-Hate Conference
The Eradicate Hate Global Summit was formed as a response to the largest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. On October 27, 2018, a gunman motivated by hate ideologies murdered 11 Jews and injured others worshiping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The third annual summit took place on September 27–29, 2023 in Pittsburgh, and a delegation representing hate crime grantee sites attended the event. Video recordings of the summit plenary presentations, as well as prior year’s presentations, are available to view on the summit’s social media platform.
Representatives from Hate Crimes grantee site Houston Police Department pictured with Hate Crimes TTA Program team members.
Young Guns—Understanding a New Generation of Extremist Radicalization in the United States
This paper provides an overview of how the landscape of youth radicalization in the United States is shifting to a new, younger generation of extremists gaining inspiration from a broad range of ideologies. The paper discusses key trends in extremist mobilization, the role of social media, and the broad range of extremist actors currently targeting young people.
Site Highlights
Mentoring Future Hate Crimes Investigators
The Westchester County District Attorney’s Office (WCDAO) in White Plains, New York, leveraged its existing internship program to give undergraduate and law school students an opportunity to work with expert hate crimes prosecuting attorneys, analysts, and law enforcement staff. Since mid-2022, the WCDAO Hate Crimes Unit has had an intern every semester, and it expanded the program to two interns during summer 2023. As a result of the interns’ assistance, the Hate Crimes Unit has been able to expand training outreach to law enforcement agencies, schools, and community groups through educational presentations on hate crimes. The WCDAO received funding to hire a crime analyst and build its Hate Crimes Unit staff through the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program.
Justice Department Awards Over $4.4 Billion to Support Community Safety
On September 28, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced $4.4 billion in grants to support state, local, and tribal public safety and community justice activities, including those addressing the rise of hate crimes across the country. More information about the awards can be found by visiting www.ojp.gov/funding/fy23awards.
Maryland Office of the Attorney General: Fighting Hate Crimes, a Resource Guide
In February 2020, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General issued a guidance document, Strategies for Responding to Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents, to assist community members in understanding Maryland’s hate crimes laws, distinguishing hate crimes from hate bias incidents, encouraging the reporting of hate crimes and hate bias incidents, and developing successful community strategies for combating hate crime activity. Highlights of the guidance were incorporated in a pamphlet for easy distribution to community members and groups.
Broward State Attorney’s Office Launches New Data Dashboard to Increase Transparency
The Broward County, Florida, State Attorney’s Office (SAO) recently unveiled a new data dashboard, a public feature on its website, that promotes transparency and effective decision making in the criminal justice system. The dashboard was created in partnership with Florida International University’s and Loyola University–Chicago’s Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPI) program. The Broward SAO’s PPI dashboard is expected to include information on hate crimes in the future.
Special Interest
Cause for Concern 2024: State of Hate
This report outlines the serious threat of an alarming rise in hate crimes since 2014. Each of the last four presidential election periods has shown an unmistakable pattern: Hate crimes increase during elections. The report, the most recent publication in the Leadership Conference Education Fund’s “Cause for Concern” series, covers this trend.
Personal Connections Overcome Hate-Fueled Violence
This short documentary video, featured at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, is about an Afghan refugee named Bibi Bahrami and the members of her Indiana mosque, who come face to face with Richard “Mac” McKinney, a U.S. Marine who has secret plans to bomb their community center. But Mac McKinney’s plan takes an unexpected turn. Stranger at the Gate was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2023 Academy Awards.
This project was supported by Grant No. 15PBJA-21-GK-02977-HATE awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART).
Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
