Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act of 2025

This bill aims to improve how cities and counties report hate crimes. It tells the Justice Department to set up a check, within three years of the law taking effect, to see if local governments are honestly reporting hate-crime data to the FBI. A place can be flagged if it doesn’t send any hate-crime data or reports zero incidents for the year.

If a place fails this check, it would not be eligible for funding under this program. There’s an exception: the Attorney General can let a place keep its eligibility if it has strong, community-wide education and awareness efforts on hate crimes. The Justice Department must post a yearly list of places that get this exception on its website. “Covered jurisdictions” are local governments with more than 100,000 people that are applying for a grant under this program.

Key points

• Who is affected: Local governments with over 100,000 people that apply for this program’s grants.
• What changes: DOJ creates a way to check if hate-crime data to the FBI is real; places that don’t report or report zero may lose eligibility; an exception exists for strong community education efforts; DOJ posts an annual list of exceptions.
• When: The check must start no later than three years after the law takes effect; the exceptions list is posted each year.