BJA FY21 Collaborative Approach toward Preventing and Addressing Hate Crime

The City of San Jose Police Department is applying for the Collaborative Approaches toward Preventing and Addressing Hate Crime Demonstration Project in collaboration with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. The project is requesting funding in the amount of $750,000 for the period of 10/1/21 to 9/30/24.  The program will help address the 98% increase of hate crime reported in the last four years by increasing public safety and is intended to reduce hate crimes and hate incidents among victims who are subject to hate incidents and hate crimes.  The program will offer resources to support outreach, build relationships, and improve education to identify and report hate crimes, as well as support investigations and prosecution of these cases by providing the following:

•    Assign additional detective hours for follow up with hate incidents in specific neighborhoods, public areas, and businesses.
•    Conduct several educational events upon which the officers, detectives, and crime prevention personnel can meet with community members, provide brochures, flyers at neighborhood gathering, festivals and other educational events to build trust in the community.
•    Disseminate information on how and when to report hate crimes or hate incidents to the Police Department.
•    Conduct additional walking beats. The walking beats include visible police presence by the officers and a sergeant in an assigned area, contacting businesses and people in the community, discussing issues, and acting as a physical deterrent of hate incidents and crimes that might occur. This will allow collaboration between the police department and the community to voice concerns in their neighborhoods, ie: hate graffiti, hate speech, hate threats and/or violence.
•    Continue collaboration between the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and the San Jose Police Department to ensure hate crimes are submitted to the District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.  
•    Allow detectives to follow up on more substantial hate incidents to investigate probable case for a hate crime investigation which then can be submitted to the DA’s Office.    

The City of San José is the 10th largest city in the United States and the 3rd largest city in California. The City of San José encompasses approximately 181 square miles and is in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  San José, within the County of Santa Clara, has a population of 1,009,340 residents and is well known today as the Capital of the Silicon Valley.  Based on the census bureau data, the racial make-up of San José is 32% Hispanic, 35 % Asian, 26% White, 3% African American, and 4% others.