The Illinois Senate last spring passed a proposal to require the Illinois Law Enforcement Training Standards Board to develop or approve a hate crimes training program, which would become part of police officers’ introductory and continuing mandatory education. The measure did not advance.

According to the FBI’s latest annual report, there were 8,263 hate crime incidents in the U.S. in 2020. That’s up from 7,314 in 2019 when the country experienced the highest number of hate crimes since 2008. Now the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes is set to examine how to prevent and address hate crimes across the state.