Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Chapter 6 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 116A the following section:-

Section 116B. The criminal justice training council shall provide instruction for police officers in identifying, responding to and reporting all incidents of hate crime, as defined in section sixteen of chapter twenty-two. The criminal justice training council shall include such instruction in all curricula for recruits and in-service trainees and in all police academies operated or certified by said council.

SECTION 2. Chapter 22 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following four sections:-

Section 16. For the purposes of sections 16 to 19, inclusive, the following words shall have the following meanings:-

"Crime reporting unit", a joint project of the department of public safety and the criminal history systems board charged with the responsibility of collecting incident reports submitted by state, local and campus police departments and other law enforcement authorities and disseminating periodic reports analyzing and interpreting crime rates and trends in the commonwealth.

"Hate crime", any criminal act coupled with overt actions motivated by bigotry and bias including, but not limited to, a threatened, attempted or completed overt act motivated at least in part, by racial, religious, ethnic, handicap or sexual orientation prejudice, or which otherwise deprives another person of his constitutional rights by threats, intimidation or coercion, or which seek to interfere with or disrupt a person's exercise of constitutional rights through harassment or intimidation. Hate crime shall also include, but not be limited to, acts that constitute violations of sections thirty-seven and thirty-nine of chapter two hundred and sixty-five, section one hundred and twenty-seven A of chapter two hundred and sixty-six and chapter two hundred and seventy-two.

"Hate crime data", information, incident reports, records and statistics relating to hate crimes, collected by the crime reporting unit.

"Incident report", an account of occurrence of a hate crime received or collected by the crime reporting unit.

Section 17. The commissioner of public safety shall promulgate regulations relating to the collection of hate crime data.

Said regulations shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

(1) Establishment of a central repository for the collection and analysis of hate crime data and, upon the establishment of such repository, the crime reporting unit shall be responsible for collecting, analyzing, classifying and reporting such data, and shall maintain this information in the central repository.

(2) Procedures necessary to ensure effective data-gathering and preservation and protection of confidential information, and the disclosure of information in accordance with section nineteen.

(3) Procedures for the solicitation and acceptance of reports regarding hate crime which are submitted to the crime reporting unit.

(4) Procedures for assessing the credibility and accuracy of reports of hate crime data from law enforcement agencies.

Section 18. The crime reporting unit shall summarize and analyze reports of hate crime data it receives. Said unit shall transmit copies of all such reports to the attorney general. The crime reporting unit shall also file an annual report regarding hate crime data with the governor, the attorney general, the joint committees on public safety, criminal justice and the judiciary, and the senate and house committees on ways and means. Such annual reports shall be public records.

Section 19. The crime reporting unit shall cause any hate crime data collected to be made available for use by any law enforcement agency and shall also be made available to any unit of local government, to any state agency and to the general public in a manner consistent with the requirements of sections one hundred and sixty-seven and one hundred and sixty-eight of chapter six. Dissemination of such information shall be subject to all confidentiality requirements otherwise imposed by law.