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By Greg deGiere, Civil Rights Advocate, The Arc California
Police report less than one-half of one percent (0.4%) of all hate crimes are against people with disabilities, according to US Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI data. Either police don’t recognize an anti-disability hate crime when they see it, or victims and witnesses don’t report it to the police in the first place, so police never have a chance to identify them as hate crimes – or as crimes at all. As a result, the perpetrators are never brought to justice, which does nothing to prevent still more anti-disability crimes.
Here in California, we’ve known about this failure of the criminal justice system since 2001 when the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes, after almost two dozen public hearings throughout the state, named anti-disability crimes as the most under-reported hate crimes. We’ve been taking major steps for years to remedy this failure, with limited success. In 2017 we led civil rights groups in convincing the Legislature to order a performance audit (“Hate Crimes in California: Law Enforcement Has Not Adequately Identified, Reported, or Responded to Hate Crimes”) that lead to major initiatives by both the state Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Legislature. Probably as a result, police reported 12 anti-disability hate crimes in 2022, according to state DOJ figures. That’s not much, but it’s the most ever. It used to be an average of just four per year.
Is it surprising we call anti-disability crimes the invisible hate crimes?
We took the next big step last week when we led a large, very diverse group of organizations calling on the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to make major improvements to its model hate crime policy including detailed protocols for recognizing, reporting and responding to hate crimes and reaching out to the community. This is a follow-up to our leadership role in winning passage last year of Assembly Bill 449 by Assemblymember Phil Ting requiring every law enforcement agency from local park rangers to the CHP to adopt POST’s model policy and protocols — with any upgrades.
Under our proposals to POST last week, every crime against a person with a disability will be classed as a suspected hate crime, to be investigated to determine whether there is evidence it was a hate crime. Police won’t always find evidence, but we know from experience they won’t ever find it if they don’t look.
Last year’s successful passage of AB 449 and last week’s ambitious requests also include steps to encourage victims and witnesses to call the police. One major proposed requirement is that every law enforcement agency would name a hate crimes coordinator whose duties include outreach to the community to hear their concerns and encourage reporting, either directly to police or through the new CA vs. Hate hot line.
Convincing POST to adopt our recommendations won’t be easy. But we already have assurances POST will take them seriously.
Stay tuned. As we always say to our many civil rights allies, We Shall Overcome.