The San Francisco Bay Area Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, today welcomed Santa Clara County Officials’ efforts to implement a system to track and address hate crimes.
The Board of Supervisors directed county workers to come up with a plan, which would entail tracking hate-filled incidents and making the data visible to the public.
Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who co-introduced the referral with Supervisor Otto Lee, said she has no preference on whether a new office is created, as long as some department is receiving reports and tracking incidents.
The San Jose Police Department reported 116 hate crimes in 2021, compared to 89 in 2020 and 33 in 2019. This is part of a broader pattern in California where the overall number of hate crimes increased from 1,015 in 2019 to 1,330 in 2020.
“We fully support the decision to implement a system to properly capture the rate of hate crimes, which have been underreported and swept under the rug for too long,” said CAIR-SFBA’s legal services coordinator Natima Neily. “We need to ensure the safety and protection of each individual, and that starts with knowing about how many of us are being affected.”
Bob Nunez, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, said he believes the county is taking hate crimes seriously, and he appreciates its efforts.
