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The Department of Justice took action after the US Congress passed anti-hate crime legislation.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland (Merrick Garland) on Thursday instructed the Department of Justice to expand funding to states and municipalities to help track and investigate hate crimes, and ordered prosecutors to strengthen criminal and civil investigations of hate incidents.
In a memo to Justice Department employees, Garland said that Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta will assign a person to coordinate and act as a central “hub” for hate crimes, with prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, and communities Group cooperation to ensure that there are sufficient resources to conduct investigations. And track hate crimes.
Garland said in the memo: “Hate crimes and other prejudice-related incidents instill fear in the entire community and undermine the principles on which our democracy is based.”
“All people in this country should be able to live without worrying about being attacked or harassed because of where they come from, what they look like, who they love or how they worship.”
Garland’s memo came when Asian Americans have faced increasing attacks and racist encounters since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and then President Donald Trump began to blame China for the virus.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden Sign the law The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which authorizes the Department of Justice to designate an official to expedite the review of hate crimes reported to the police.
The new law aims to combat Hate crimes during the pandemic Passed by an overwhelming majority in the U.S. Congress.
In March of this year, Garland announced that he would launch a 30-day rapid review to explore how the department can improve the work of prosecuting hate crimes and collecting better data.
Thursday’s memorandum implements some of the requirements of the law, as well as some of the recommendations from the previous review.
Garland’s memo on Thursday also designated an official to be responsible for expediting the review of hate crimes and called on the U.S. Attorney’s Office to designate local criminal and civil prosecutors as civil rights coordinators.
“Hate behavior does not always rise to the level of federal hate crimes, but such hate incidents still have a devastating impact on our communities. When federal hate crime regulations do not provide, federal civil regulations sometimes provide remedies,” added Lan wrote.
The majority of Americans across racial and ethnic groups believe that discrimination against Asian Americans intensified last year, and they have become targets of attacks after being unfairly accused by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Public Affairs Research Center, 60% of Americans said that compared with a year ago, discrimination against Asian Americans has increased.
According to a survey released on May 26, nearly half of Americans believe that Asian Americans have encountered “a lot” or “a considerable amount” of discrimination in the United States today.
Opinion polls also show that about six in ten Americans said that overall, racism in the United States is a “very” or “extremely” serious problem. Most Asian Americans said they feel unsafe in public because of their ethnicity.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,842 adults was conducted from April 29 to May 3. The margin of error for all respondents was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
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