Advocates Push For Passage Of Bill Mandating Hate Crime Training For Police In Illinois

CHICAGO — Representatives of civil rights nonprofits and governmental commissions gathered Monday to urge state lawmakers to pass a bill requiring police to undergo hate crimes training.

The legislation — Senate Bill 3552 and its identical House companion, House Bill 5368 — passed the Illinois Senate 58-0 in April and passed a House committee 15-0 in May but was not brought the floor for a vote.

At a news conference convened at the Chicago Urban League, the coalition of groups called for state representatives to pass the bill during January's lame duck session. The push comes as Illinois has seen a 362 percent increase in reported hate crimes in recent years, rising from 70 incidents in 2019 to 324 incidents in 2023, according to data voluntarily submitted to the FBI by law enforcement agencies.

Speakers pointed to disturbing examples of bias-motivated violence, including last month's shooting of an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue, the targeted attack of a pair of pro-Israel college students and two men who were allegedly shot because they were believed to be gay.

Elana Kahn, the executive director of the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, said there are, essentially, three types of acts of hate — not all of which qualify as hate crimes under state law.

"There has to be a motive, a bias motivation, and it has to be a crime. Then there's what we call bias-motivated civil rights violations. So: discrimination, harassment, being refused service at restaurant, being denied a promotion, et cetera," Kahn said. "And then there are things that are hateful but legal. You know, walking down the street, you can call somebody names all you want, as long as you're not intimidating or threatening them."

Mike Ziri, the director of public policy for Equality Illinois, cited FBI data showing a 16 percent rise in the number of gender identity-based hate crimes from 2022 to 2023.

"Attacks based on sexual orientation were up 23% between 2022 and 2023. In fact, more than one in five hate crimes is motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias," Ziri said.

Still, many hate crimes and bias incidents never get reported, he said.

"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," he said.

Shobhana Johri Verma, the executive director of the South Asian American Policy and Research Institute, described the results of her organization's recent research into hate crimes and discrimination against members of Chicago's South Asian community.

"We have been targeted for the color of our skin, the way we look, the way we dress, the way we pray. However, when we talk to our community members, a majority of them said that they had never reported a hate crime ... because of the model minority myth and the baggage that we carry as well. We don't want to make noise. We don't want to be seen and creating more noise," Johri Verma said.

One local small business owner told her an employee had been targeted and injured by a patron who told them to "go back where they came from."

"The employee had to seek medical care as a result of this incident, the incident was never reported, but then the business owner said to me, 'We've sort of learned to swallow our pride and move on,'" she said.

"So this speaks to a lot. This speaks to why a lot of our community members do not report hate crimes. They do have a lot of lack of trust with the authorities. They have prior experiences with the law enforcement agencies. They have language barriers. There are cultural reasons why they do not report, but I think this [new law] would be a step in that direction."

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) in the Senate and State Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) in the Illinois House. It requires the Illinois Law Enforcement Training Standards Board, or ILETSB, to develop or approve training programs to help law enforcement officers identify, respond to and accurately report hate crimes.

The training must include instruction on distinguishing hate crimes from other crimes, supporting and understanding victims and making sure they are accurately reported. Law enforcement officers would be required to complete this hate crimes training every three years as part of their minimum in-service training.

The proposed law encourages the ILETSB to adopt model police policies to address hate crimes in consultation with the Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes and keep training in line with national best practices "within a reasonable amount of time." The board must also host periodic educational conferences to inform law enforcement leadership, community providers and other stakeholders about hate crimes issues and responses.

Even though more than 40 percent of hate crimes are thought to go unreported, the number of reported hate crimes nationwide have been on the rise since 2015, according to David Goldenberg, the Midwest regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

In Illinois, nearly 200 law enforcement agencies do not voluntarily report crime data to the FBI, he noted, with Chicago and other major cities recently reporting zero hate crimes to the feds for an entire year.

"Now, despite Illinois being one of the first states in the country to establish a state hate crimes law, we are still not one of the 14 who require our police officers to be trained on it. This must change," Goldenberg said.

"Our communities have already lost six months since the General Assembly adjourned in June without passing this bill. This was time when the training could have been prepared. This is time when the training could have been promoted," he said. "We can't afford to waste more time, and we can't allow Illinois to fall further behind the rest of the country when it comes to fighting hate crimes."