Police Department Investigated Hate Crimes

Hate crimes are serious crimes that may result in imprisonment or jail time. B. HOW THE DATASET IS CREATED How is a Hate Crime Processed? Not all prejudice incidents including the utterance of hate speech rise to the level of a hate crime.

The U.S. Constitution allows hate speech if it does not interfere with the civil rights of others. While these acts are certainly hurtful, they do not rise to the level of criminal violations and thus may not be prosecuted. When a prejudice incident is reported, the reporting officer conducts a preliminary investigation and writes a crime or incident report.

Bigotry must be the central motivation for an incident to be determined to be a hate crime. In that report, all facts such as verbatims or statements that occurred before or after the incident and characteristics such as the race, ethnicity, sex, religion, or sexual orientations of the victim and suspect (if known) are included. To classify a prejudice incident, the San Francisco Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit of the Special Investigations Division conducts an analysis of the incident report to determine if the incident falls under the definition of a “hate crime” as defined by state law.

California Penal Code 422.55 - Hate Crime Definition C. UPDATE PROCESS These data are updated monthly. D. HOW TO USE THIS DATASET This dataset includes the following information about each incident: the hate crime offense, bias type, location/time, and the number of hate crime victims and suspects. The data presented mirrors data published by the California Department of Justice, albeit at a higher frequency.

The publishing of these data meet requirements set forth in PC 13023. E. RELATED DATASETS California Department of Justice - Hate Crimes Info California Department of Justice - Hate Crimes Data