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Hawaii is the only state that doesn’t participate in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics Program. Instead, state officials currently compile their own hate crimes report with information collected from local prosecutors rather than police.
The Associated Press identified more than 2,700 city police and county sheriff’s departments across the country that have not submitted a single hate crime report for the FBI’s annual crime tally during the past six years — about 17 percent of all city and county law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Because Hawaii’s four local police agencies don’t send such information to the FBI, the nine hate crimes recorded in a statewide report from 2009 to 2014 were not reflected in the national statistics. The state’s most recent report includes two hate crimes in 2015, both on Kauai involving anti-Caucasian epithets.
Filing reports for the federal count is voluntary.
The state is moving toward a new police reporting system that will involve sending hate crime reports to the FBI.
In the meantime, some legal experts and community advocates expressed concern that the current system might not truly reflect Hawaii’s hate crime climate.
“Leaving it up to local prosecutors to exercise discretion is probably resulting in skewing information about these matters,” said Eric Seitz, a Honolulu attorney who represented two gay women who recently settled their lawsuit against Honolulu for $80,000 over allegations a police officer unnecessarily arrested them for kissing in a grocery store.
It’s driven by a desire to protect Hawaii’s image in the tourism industry, he said: “(The state) doesn’t want negative things to be publicized.”
Joshua Wisch, special assistant to Hawaii’s attorney general, said that’s not what motivates how the state reports hate crimes. “By placing the point of data collection at the prosecution level, Hawaii’s program utilizes limited police resources more efficiently, avoids false positives, and is based on incidents that clearly meet the state’s legal definition of hate crimes,” he said in a statement.
Avoiding false positives is important, but there could be some incidents that don’t make it to court for various reasons, including not finding a suspect or cooperative witness, Kauai Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar said.
“And therefore, those cases wouldn’t be included in the tally or in the report,” he said. “So that’s the concern that does come up that it’s actually being underreported because of the way the process is set up.”
The current process works well for police, Maj. Randy Apele of the Hawaii Police Department said. “It works for us because if it’s designated as a possible hate crime, we flag it so that prosecutors can properly investigate it,” he said.
Hate crimes aren’t underreported, because the state’s reports accurately reflect how rare such incidents are in the islands, Apele said. “I think in Hawaii we have such a melting pot of nationalities, cultures,” he said. “Everyone lives cooperatively with the aloha spirit in Hawaii and is very accepting.”
Hawaii does submit data on violent crimes such as homicide and rape to the FBI.
The state will send hate crime reports to the FBI when it switches to a new police filing system with that crime reporting built into it, Wisch said. Each of Hawaii’s police departments will transition to the new process on different schedules, beginning as early as this fall, he said.
Hawaii will benefit from that change, Kollar said. “Consistency I think would be beneficial just so that we know where we stand in relation to other states and are better able to assess whether or not we’re really doing our job as law enforcement.”
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AP Writer Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Anti Caucasian epithet? On Kauai?
Hawaii has always hidden its problems with race. There is no excuse for the police dragging their feet on reporting to the FBI. Our prosecuting offices are generally very weak and poorly run. Yes, Hawaii is all about race and no, it is not really a melting pot. That is tourist industry rhetoric. For example, Micronesians have strong, and often violent reactions to Hawaiians and vice versa. Yes, the differences are economic and cultural. But it is more than that. Wake up Hawaii and smell what you have made.
Can you find somewhere else better to live than Hawaii? Yes? Then why are you still here?
That’s right, attack Allie for speaking truth to power while burying your own head in the sand. That way nothing will change and you will continue to get “railroaded”. And yes, there are numerous other better places to live but if this one could get cleaned up, well there would be none that could surpass it. Allie for mayor.
If you get so angry at someone that you kill them, how can that not be a hate crime? this hate crime definition is so B$ and PC.
This is the FBI definition of hate crime that you call “so B$ and PC”: a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” To reject that definition is to align yourself with this country’s vilest strains of racism and bigotry, and, sadly, as Trump plumbs the appalling depths of Republican core beliefs, it becomes alarming clear that you have a lot of company.
Oh, stop it. Hurting anyone is hateful.
If anything, the left’s actions in San Jose recently fits the FBI’s definition as we saw Mexicans, waving Mexican flags beating up white Americans. Sheesh.
And rejecting that definition does not necessarily align one with racism and bigotry. All it is, is a disagreement with the definition.
Let’s see, setting fire to a “monstrosity” giant wooden tiki on the North Shoe by the same guys who shut down everything not tied in to the drug hui was a hate crime but not reported as such by the HPD even though the state and city hate crime list is identical to the federal hate crime list. Seitz nails it: “(The state) doesn’t want negative things to be publicized.” God help the state when everything the state does with the native Hawaiian as its victim becomes more widely known!!!
Racial bias has been here for a long time. For the most part everyone gets along until someone comes into your neighborhood or surroundings. Then people get threatened. It happens at school, in the work place at the beach, Everywhere! The problem is its acceptable behavior in Hawaii. People talk openly about it but stuff happens. Just like that sandwich shop in Kailua. The perp got aggressive because the guy was white. Thats racist.
Have to agree and it is becoming much more prevalent as our society becomes more intolerant. Son had a classmate from police recruit class, went to Hana to work, officer is from Colorado, planned to stay in Hana until he sent his kids to school there, picked on by locals, eventually left. Isolated communties tend to chase outsiders away, race is a contributing factor, state is in denial.
In my younger days (50s, 60s and 70s) everyone pretty much got along. We laughed at jokes on ourselves that today would be considered racist by some. Like South Park, no one was left out of the good-natured humor. But several things happened that have worked to reduce this all-getting-along. In the 70s with the rise of Hawaiian pride and the birth of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement made Native Hawaiians realize that they were no lesser citizens and anyone else and that they had lost their sovereign and independent country to the U.S. This was further exacerbated by the growing influx of off-islanders with more money than many of us and the rapidly rising cost of living and housing. Loss of neighborhoods? Yup. Malahini could come here and buy land & houses kama’aina could no longer afford. Jealousy? Sure. But real. Right or wrong it was dividing us. Things like the State not fulfilling its obligations with Hawaiian Home Lands yet Caucasians are receiving the brunt of this ire over this even though the State was run primarily by the Asian descendants of imported plantation workers who were largely responsible for the manini progress at HHL. Fortunately, that is changing now, but for people’s feelings of being ignored, it’s a little & too late. So it’s no wonder that the feelings of loss have turned to anger in some. The feelings are justified, even though aggressive actions on anyone are not. This will take a long time to heal. Economic prosperity and accomplishment for all would really help.
Hawaii is the only state that doesn’t participate in the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics Program.
But the state does favor including a list of all legal gun owners in the FBI database.
Just another of thousands of reasons why the Nei is known around the world as “The little 8th world of Hawaii Nei.” Backwards, afraid of change, utterly incompetent.
Just because I have a lot of hate for the racists criminals of our state, they would want to lock me up forever in prison for opening up my mouth. You don’t see me going out murdering anyone though, which I would never do, following the 10 commandments of god, I ain’t that stupid. Don’t get me mistaken for a murderer, okay!! Cause I sure ain’t.