Each year the Commission distributes a detailed report combining data submitted by law enforcement agencies, school districts, fair housing councils, ethnic and religious organizations, and other concerned groups on hate crimes committed in Los Angeles County. The report is circulated to policy-makers, law enforcement agencies, educators, and community groups throughout Los Angeles County to better inform efforts to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute hate crimes. In addition, the data form the centerpiece for several ongoing Commission programs aimed at ending hate crime, including a victim assistance initiative, a youth anti-discrimination program and a network that includes law enforcement agency representatives, civil rights advocates, social services personnel, and educators.

The 2006 data show that reported hate crime in Los Angeles County fell by six percent between 2005 and 2006 to the second lowest level since tracking began in 1980. But in 2007, reported hate crime jumped by 28 percent, despite an overall drop in crime in the County. The series of reports provides valuable trend data in the composition and quantity of hate crime throughout Los Angeles County.

The report is an impressive example of how state and local human rights and human relations commissions across the United States can work with law enforcement and community organizations to improve the administration of criminal justice. Another strong example is the 16-year effort by the Orange County CA Human Relations Commission to collect hate crime data as well as data on hate incidents. Hate incidents are actions that are motivated by hate or bias towards a person's actual or perceived disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation that are not criminal in nature, such as distribution of racist flyers. Typically these are behaviors that are protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, yet can breed tension that leads to commission of hate crimes.