LA City Council Passes Motion To Improve Hate Crime Reporting
The LA City Council passed a motion Friday aimed at improving the city's systems for people who need to report hate crimes, citing a disparity between the number of such crimes reported to law enforcement and the number reported to the nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate.
The effort was led by Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who introduced a motion passed in November to have the Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department and the Information Technology Agency report on ways to improve access for reporting hate incidents, including through a dedicated mobile app or the My311LA app.
Following that report, the City Council on Friday voted to have the City Administrative Officer identify funding to build capacity for 311 staff to include delivery of trauma informed training for 311 staff handling hate reporting calls, as well as funding opportunities to support hate reporting improvements, address needs of hate crime victims, improve the efficacy of bystander interventions and support research partnerships to study the feasibility of a reporting application.
"I feel strongly about this work: the steep rise in hate crimes in LA demands informed policy decisions and broad mitigation strategies. But it is hard to move forward without more reporting and better data that allows us to understand trends on hate crimes," Raman said in a statement Friday.