Hate crime and incident reporting.

Existing law requires, when requested by the Attorney General, that every person or agency dealing with crimes or criminals maintain the records necessary to report statistical data, and report statistical data to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. Existing law requires the Attorney General, subject to the availability of adequate funding, to direct local law enforcement agencies to report information related to hate crimes, as defined, to the Department of Justice. This bill would require a law enforcement agency, if it has updated its crime reporting system to align with the California Incident Based Reporting System, to (1) include in the agency's informational, incident, and crime reports a check box indicating whether the underlying incident in the report is a suspected hate crime or hate incident, as defined, and (2) complete for each hate crime or hate incident, a supplemental hate crime or hate incident report form that indicates the type of bias motivation and any other identifying information to assist in the prosecution of the hate crime, or, in the case of a hate incident, to be used for informational, crime prevention, law enforcement planning, trend analysis, and potential evidentiary purposes. By creating new reporting requirements for local law enforcement agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.