~ The bipartisan No Hate Act provides tools and resources to better understand, identify, and report hate crimes, helping to prevent them ~

RICHMOND (May 19, 2021) – Attorney General Mark R. Herring issued the below statement following Congress’s passage of the bipartisan Jabara-Heyer No Hate Act, which will provide state and local governments and law enforcement agencies with the tools and resources to understand, identify, and report hate crimes and, as a result, help prevent them. In April, Attorney General Herring joined a coalition of 35 attorneys general in urging Congress to pass this important legislation:

“Over the past several years, I have been working hard to try and combat the alarming rise of hate and white supremacist violence that we are seeing in Virginia and around the country,” said Attorney General Herring. “Unfortunately, underreporting has become a serious roadblock to preventing hate crimes and helping vulnerable communities. I want to applaud Congress for passing the No Hate Act that provides more funding to improve hate crimes reporting, which will give law enforcement even more tools and information to protect Virginia’s most vulnerable communities.”

 

The legislation specifically aims to help rectify inaccurate and incomplete data by providing federal grants to improve hate crimes reporting. The grants would be used to train employees on identifying, classifying, and reporting hate crimes in the FBI’s national database; assist with states’ development of programs to prevent hate crimes; increase community education around hate crimes; and create state-run hate crime hotlines.

For years Attorney General Herring has been raising awareness of the threat of white supremacist violence and proposing new laws to keep Virginians safe. Attorney General Herring’s proposed bills would update the Commonwealth’s hate crime and domestic terrorism laws, protect Virginians from violence and intimidation by hate groups and white supremacists, and make it harder for hate groups and white supremacists to threaten, intimidate, or hurt Virginians with firearms.

In addition to his legislative proposals, Attorney General Herring launched NoHateVA.com to give vulnerable communities more information and resources to protect themselves from hate crime and white supremacist violence. Last month, Attorney General Herring updated NoHateVA.com dedicating it to focus exclusively on the rise of anti-Asian hate, abuse, discrimination, and violence that has coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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