Designed of hate crimes that are to be offered anti -Semitism training

The public prosecutors from Nassau County and a Holocaust Museum are composed for a new program to combat hate crimes, which will focus more on education than on punishment, the officials said on Monday.

The prosecutors said they would offer the accused who offered to undergo educational programs because of hate crimes, including anti-Semitic, to shorten their prison or probation period, said Anne T. Donnelly, district prosecutor of Nassau County.

“I see education more than a prison,” said Donnelly at a press conference in the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of the Nassau district in Glen Cove. “What I have instructed my hate criminal unit is when they [defendants] Come and you take the educational program, then you can lower the fees and give you a better contract.

The public prosecutor announced that it recently implemented this new model and that two defendants made it possible to conclude a plea contract in which they had to take antibia training, completed non -profit service and a guided tour of the museum.

“Nassau County will not be available and anti -Semitic crimes will be committed,” said Donnelly. “We will pursue people who cross this line. But an important first step is something that is offered here in this museum, and that is education.”

Alon Milwicki, Senior Research Analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center and expert in anti -Semitism, said that programs such as the approach of the Nassau district prosecutor, if they were done correctly, can be successful.

“When it comes to anti -Semitism, the best weapon we have in our tool scales is education,” he said. “The only way through whether it is anti -Semitism or other types of racism is honest, open, discussing education.”

He set a bad anti-hate program with someone who receives speed tickets, completes an online-safe driving course and simply clicks through her without really learning.

The new anti-hate crime campaign will also include advertisements on television, radio and social media that “stop hate before it escalates,” said Bernie Furshpan, deputy chairman of the Holocaust Museum.

“In Long Island we experience a disturbing increase in prejudices and the hateful rhetoric,” he said. “Too many lives were influenced by words, the wounded and actions that terrorize.”

“We know that hatred does not appear in a vacuum,” he added. “It grows where the ignorance remains, where intolerance falls and where the words remain deactivated.”

The museum builds around 35,000 school children a year, and although these programs are effective, they must be more common, said Alan Mindel, CEO of the museum.

“We came to the conclusion that we have to go to larger arenas to further spread our messages,” said Mindel in an interview. “We can't talk to everyone, but we try it and we are a small, voluntary, charitable organization. We believe that frankly we are beating our weight over our weight, but it is not necessarily enough, not even nearby.”

Hass crimes nationwide and on Long Island are on the rise, with religion the most common motivation, as can be seen from a report published by state compats Thomas P. Dinapoli last August.

The hate crimes reported nationwide rose from 644 in 2019 to 1,089 in 2023, the report says. Nassau County rose from 34 to 75 reports reported between 2019 and 2023. Suffolk County rose from 20 to 31 in the same period.

In nationwide, about half of the reported hate crimes 543 were 1,089-religious prejudices. The majority of you-477-sausage classified as anti-Jewish, as the report stated.