Law enforcement: hate crimes.

Existing law defines a "hate crime" as a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of actual or perceived characteristics of the victim, including, among other things, race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation. Existing law requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to develop guidelines and a course of instruction and training for law enforcement officers addressing hate crimes. Existing law requires state law enforcement agencies to adopt a framework or other formal policy created by POST regarding hate crimes. Existing law requires any local law enforcement agency that adopts or updates a hate crime policy to include specified information in that policy, including information on bias motivation. This bill would include a statement of legislative findings and declarations and require the basic course curriculum on the topic of hate crimes to be developed in consultation with subject matter experts, as specified. The bill would, subject to an appropriation of funds for this purpose in the annual Budget Act or other statute, require POST to update the basic course to include the viewing of a specified video course developed by POST. The bill would also require POST to make the video available via the online learning portal, and would require all peace officers to complete specified training materials no later than one year after the commission makes the updated course available. The bill would require POST to develop and periodically update an interactive course on hate crimes for in-service peace officers, and require officers to take the course every 6 years. This bill would also require any local law enforcement agency that adopts or updates a hate crime policy to include specified information on recognizing religion-bias hate crimes, and would require those policies to include the discriminatory selection of victims as a form of bias motivation.