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Scholar urges centralized hate‑crime units, better referral rules to improve investigations
Summary
Dr. Janine Bell told the California Commission on the State of Hate that centralized, specialized police hate‑crime units and predictable referral rules (for example, routing any incident with slurs to specialists) produce better investigations and greater victim trust, while most U.S. agencies still fail to report bias data to the FBI.
Dr. Janine Bell, Curt and Linda Roden Professor of Law and Social Justice at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, told the commission on March 26 that specialized, centralized police units are the most effective institutional response for identifying and prosecuting hate crimes. Bell described five‑plus months of embedded fieldwork in a large city hate‑crime unit, interviews with detectives and prosecutors, and a review of roughly 700 case files.
Bell said the unit she studied had language interpreters, victim‑advocate relationships and a case‑classification practice that allowed detectives to separate hate crimes from hate incidents and hate speech. She said those structural features — city‑wide caseloads, repeated community contact and specialist training — let units develop reliable markers that reduce misclassification and improve outcomes for victims.
"If you have all the hate crimes for the city, then you develop ideas about hate crime and procedures and routines that make it very easy to separate things that are not hate crimes," Bell said. She recommended a default rule that any report containing slurs or bias indicators should be routed to the specialized unit for classification.
Commission members asked how smaller agencies or sheriff's departments could implement the model. Bell said a Direct Intervention Response Team (DIRTT) or a bias‑crime liaison officer can work in smaller jurisdictions if the designated person is well trained, committed to identifying hate crimes and prepared for political pressure that may follow formal classification.
Bell also emphasized limits in national reporting: she cited earlier data suggesting only a small percentage of agencies ever had specialized units and noted the widespread failure of agencies to submit bias‑crime data to the FBI, leaving victims and researchers with incomplete pictures of prevalence.
Commissioners and public commenters pressed on practical policies — language access, baseline officer training, and clearer pathways to referrals — and Bell repeatedly recommended simple, implementable defaults: baseline training for first responders to collect the facts, and a low‑friction referral to specialists who will make classification and investigative decisions.
The presentation concluded with public‑comment questions about disability‑related hate crimes and tribal jurisdiction; Bell reiterated that first responders should gather facts neutrally and forward cases to experts for classification.
The commission took no formal vote on the presentation; Bell's remarks were presented as scholarship and invited discussion and follow‑up.
