Hate Crimes and Hate Incidents

Hate Crime: At the federal level, a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability. 

Hate crime charges can be an important recognition that the crime committed was not only an attack against the specific victim, but also an attack against their entire community. 

Hate Incident: Acts of prejudice that are not crimes and do not involve violence, threats, or property damage.

Discrimination: The unfair treatment of a person based on their characteristics such as race, gender, disability, or age. Federal law protects you from illegal discrimination.

The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Right Division can provide more information on discrimination and how to report civil rights violations. 

 https://www.justice.gov/crt/laws-we-enforce

Preventing and prosecuting hate crimes is a top priority for the Department of Justice (DOJ). Accordingly, the DOJ is deploying all the tools within its disposal to counter the recent rise in hate crimes and hate incidents.  In addition to pursuing hate crimes prosecutions, the U.S. Attorney’s Office works closely with local law enforcement partners to improve hate crime and hate incident reporting; maintain accurate data; conduct training to educate attorneys, law enforcement, and the public about how to protect our communities from hate crimes and hate incidents; host outreach events to engage with targeted communities; and provide resources to organizations combating hate crimes and/or supporting victims of hate crimes and incidents.

While we have and use prosecutorial tools to ensure those who commit hate crimes are held accountable, not every hate incident rises to the level of a crime.  Even where the U.S. Attorney’s Office cannot bring federal charges for a hate incident, we encourage anyone who is subject to a hate incident to report it to law enforcement anyway.  By gathering, maintaining, and analyzing data from reported hate crimes and hate incidents, we can better under the true scope and impact of hate crimes.  This data is also useful to law enforcement to prevent escalating incidents of hate.   

Over the past few years, we have seen a disturbing increase in threats, violence, and harassment directed at specific groups in the San Diego region. In an effort to mitigate and reverse this negative trend, the U.S. Attorney's Office participates in the San Diego Anti-Hate Coalition—an organization that coordinates outreach, education, and community dialogue on topics like bullying, hate incidents, and hate crimes. In recent years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has also hosted several hate crime forums and training events to educate the community and encourage reporting all levels of hate crimes and incidents to law enforcement. 

United Against Hate Week (October 19-25, 2025) is a call for local civic action to stop the hate and biases that pose a dangerous threat to the safety and civility of our neighborhoods, towns and cities. The UAH campaign, which emerged from a poster campaign by Bay Area Cities, has spread to over 200+ communities.