§ 42-28-46 - Development of system monitoring crimes motivated by bigotry and bias.
SECTION 42-28-46
§ 42-28-46 Development of systemmonitoring crimes motivated by bigotry and bias. – (a) For the purposes of this section, the following words shall have thefollowing meanings:
(1) "Police department" – means all state, municipal andcampus police departments within the state of Rhode Island;
(2) "Hate crime" – means any crime motivated by bigotryand bias, including, but not limited to threatened, attempted, or completedacts that appear after investigation to have been motivated by racial,religious, ethnic, sexual orientation, gender or disability prejudice;
(3) "Hate crime data" – means information, incidentreports, records and statistics relating to hate crimes, collected by the statepolice unit pursuant to this section;
(4) "Incident report" – means account of any individualoccurrence of hate crime received or collected by the crime reporting unitpursuant to this section.
(b) The state police shall, by January 1, 1994, develop asystem monitoring the occurrence of crimes committed in the state which theevidence of the offense demonstrates was motivated by racial, religious, ethnicbigotry, or bias on any other matter defined as a "hate crime" herein. Allpolice departments within the state shall report monthly the occurrence of suchcrimes to the state police. The state police shall maintain a permanent recordof these offenses categorized by community of occurrence, type of offense,target of offense, and such other information as the department deems relevant.The department shall develop a plan for the collection, analysis, anddissemination of the data regarding such crimes and shall promulgateregulations relating to the collection of hate crime data, as defined in thissection, which are submitted by law enforcement agencies, individuals, stateand local human rights commissions, and anti-discrimination advocacyorganizations.
(c) The state police shall compile and distribute to eachpolice department a listing of all criminal offenses and penalties for thoseactions defined as "hate crimes" herein. Notice of the provision of thesesections shall be primarily posted at each police station.