By Josh Plank, World Israel News -
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a nationwide public awareness campaign aimed at encouraging people to report hate crimes, the FBI’s New Jersey field office announced at a press conference Wednesday.
“We realize that members of the general public may not even be aware that the FBI investigates these matters,” said FBI Newark Special Agent in Charge George Crouch, Jr.
“That’s why, for the next several weeks, the citizens of New Jersey will be seeing messaging on billboards, busses, and in rail stations reminding them of the fact and encouraging them to report hate crimes to the FBI,” he said.
The FBI’s 56 field offices have received funding for the campaign, for which the Newark office alone plans to spend approximately $50 thousand, according to Crouch.
The messaging has been translated into 17 languages including Hebrew and Yiddish.
“New Jersey has unfortunately experienced a rise in hate crimes in the past two years, especially with respect to race. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Justice Statistics under the Department of Justice believes that the majority of hate crimes go unreported. We want to fix that,” said Crouch.
The head of FBI Newark was joined by a dozen leaders of various communities, including Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union (OU).
“We experience and are constantly experiencing low-grade hate crimes, the kinds that go underreported by the press and the kinds that go underreported by the victims,” said Hauer.
He said that victims often fail to report hate crimes “because they sort of get used to them, and they expect to face those kinds of things, and they make it part of the normal.”
Hauer said that tolerance for hate has unfortunately become part of the “community fabric,” and that it is critical to report “the constant drip of hate crimes” so that they receive the attention they deserve.
According to the FBI’s latest report, 1,650 hate crimes motivated by religious bias were reported by law enforcement in 2019. Of those offenses, 60.3 percent were anti-Jewish.
