Illinois bill aims at addressing proliferating hate crimes by providing more education for police officers
CHICAGO (CBS) – A dramatic rise in hate crimes across the nation and state is prompting representatives from different racial, ethnic, religious and gender communities to join forces.
The goal is to pressure lawmakers to pass a bill that provides education and training for police officers. But some are asking why police officers are the main target of the bill.
There are several laws on the books that address hate crimes, but the report by the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Srimes concludes that too often a hate crime is not investigated as such because police fail to recognize the necessary elements.
Earlier this year, two Jewish students were assaulted in broad daylight at DePaul University, and an Israel-related program was disrupted and property damaged at a downtown synagogue. A representative from the Jewish United Fund was among those attending a news conference at the Chicago Urban League.
Meanwhile a year ago, the victim of a hate crime was a 6-year-old Palestinian boy. Wadee AlFayoumi died after he was stabbed 26 times in front of his mother in October 2023 in Plainfield. His family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, is charged in the murder.
Each of those at the news conference talked about how the hate crimes had impacted their communities.
"No single community is immune," said David Goldenberg of the Anti-Defamation League. "Whether it be Black, Jewish, Muslim, AAPI, Sikh, Latino, LGBTQ community—all of our communities have seen a steady uptick in hate crimes over the last 10 years."
The numbers are indeed staggering.
The FBI hate crimes reports show 5,479 incidents in the U.S. in 2014. By 2023, the number had jumped to 11,862. In Illinois, 2014 numbers amounted to 109100, but by 2023 they had tripled to 324.
"Hate crimes strike at the very heart of inclusion, creating fear and division instead of trust and unity for our Latino/Latina/Latinx community and other marginalized groups," said Patricia Mota of the Hispanic Alliance for Career Advancement. "Too often, communities experience hate and bigotry without receiving the justice they deserve, largely because law enforcement officials might lack the tools or training to thoroughly investigate and accurately report these bias-motivated crimes."
"We know from stories and anecdotes that a lot of hate crimes and bias incidents go unreported—and there are many reasons for this, including a lack of trust between the community and law enforcement, and a lack of adequate training of law enforcement about hate crimes," said Mike Ziri of Equality Illinois.
The various groups are backing the proposed bill before the Illinois state legislature. It would require police officers to receive education and training.
"Hate crimes are pretty complex, and one of the biggest issues we have is for law enforcement to be able to understand why the crime happened," said Jim Bennett, director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights.
"With that data, we're able to then put together a picture of what's actually happening, what communities are being targeted, where they're being targeted—and law enforcement can then better allocate resources to protecting against that," said Upneet Teji of the Sikh Coalition.
The bill, introduced last spring, has already been unanimously passed by the Illinois state Senate. It is now on its way to the full state House.
