Policing Hate Crimes

This project investigates the system of reporting acts of hate to authorities on campus and the contrast between attitudes of Champaign-Urbana police with Campus police in handling hate crime. The author seeks to answer the following questions: What are the effects of racism and the conditions that facilitate it? What is the system of reporting hate crimes to authorities? How many hate crimes are reported? How do the police handle incidents of hate crimes? What types of punishment are enforced for committing hate crimes? What is the relationship between the residence halls and the police department when dealing with hate crimes? This research is based on independent research about hate crimes as well as individual interviews with an Illini Union official, a resident director of student housing, and university police about instances of hate crimes. From these findings, this project concludes that police may have a bias on crime that is considered a hate crime as an officer may categorize this sort of crime as something else, thus much more could be done at the university to educate the public about these issues and combat hate crimes.unpublishe