PROVIDENCE – Brown University has reached a deal with R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha that will ensure that all alleged hate crimes on the university’s campus will be reported to the R.I. State Police in a timely manner, Neronha announced Wednesday.
The agreement comes following a review of the university’s hate crime reporting to the state police that found that Brown failed to report alleged hate crimes to the state police as required under state law. The university reported 22 hate crimes to the U.S. Department of Education between 2016 and 2018, while only reporting two to the state police in that time.
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As part of its review, the attorney general’s civil rights advocate found several additional hate crime reports to Brown’s Department of Public Safety that should have been reported to the state police but never were.
The agreement will require Brown’s Department of Public Safety to implement a procedure that clarifies the university’s hate crime reporting practices; to collect and maintain all data and records necessary to review its compliance with hate crime reporting obligations for a minimum of two years; meet with the Providence Police Department to coordinate the reporting of hate crimes that occur within or near the university’s campus; to provide hate crime training to all university officers for at least two years; and to file annual reports to the R.I. Office of the Attorney General for at least two years.
“Expanding our work in civil rights has been one of my top priorities, and timely and accurate hate crime reporting is an essential piece of that work,” said Neronha in a statement. “Through consistent identification and tracking, hate crime reporting can improve law enforcement’s handling of bias-motivated incidents. By requesting accurate and universal hate crime reporting from all departments across the state, it is our goal to ensure that hate crimes are documented, investigated and prosecuted where appropriate.”
Neronha’s office noted that hate crimes in Rhode Island totaled 28 in 2019, doubling from one year prior. Statistics from 2020 were not yet available.
The agreement marks the first time the R.I. Office of the Attorney General has enforced Rhode Island’s hate crime reporting statute, the office said.
