Legal innovation startup CuroLegal last week launched a web application, co-sponsored by the American Bar Association's Center for Innovation and funded by Cisco, to help people figure out whether they may have experienced or witnessed a hate crime and how to report it if so.

The tool, called Hate Crime Help, allows users to select key information from a drop-down menu describing their experience and what they believe may have motivated the potential hate crime. From there, the tool suggests a number of different contacts in order of priority, including local law enforcement, nonprofit organizations, data collection projects, attorneys general, and local FBI agencies.

The tool also includes a short description of each potential contact point along with an explanation of what users can expect if they call any of the given offices. The tool also prominently displays contact information for each organization.

Nicole Bradick, chief strategy officer at CuroLegal, said the tool is intended to “give someone a really clear roadmap so they can decide to report,” something that she hopes can encourage people to report crimes and seek assistance.

“What's often missing in the public domain is really information about what is really going to happen to them” after reporting a hate crime, Bradick said, noting that the uncertainty and confusion may keep some from reporting. Although some resources exist online and elsewhere for some members of protected classes, this information is often sparse or difficult to apply in a local context.

There can also be an added level of fear for some communities around reporting. Undocumented people, for example, may put themselves at risk of deportation if they report a hate crime to police depending on the state or municipality.

Bradick, who spearheaded the project, said she was initially prompted to look for ways to facilitate hate crime reporting following what she saw (and what has been somewhat supported by researchcollected on the topic) as a spike in hate crimes following the election of President Donald Trump. However, in the six month window since she began work on the project, Bradick said she began to think of hate crimes as less of a Trump-inspired phenomenon and more of an ongoing difficulty for legal support groups.

“Hate crimes have always been underreported. There's very little good data,” Bradick said. Pojects like ProPublica's Documenting Hate and the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch program have attempted to fill some of these gaps, but these projects rely on self-reporting.

Broadening publicly available information is one way Bradick felt that she could help. “With all things in legal, the more information we can give to consumers about what the law provides in a digestible manner and what protections are available to them in a way that's easy to consume, that overall strengthens the rule of law,” Bradick said.

Attorneys practicing in consumer-facing areas may also find value in a tool like Hate Crime Help as a way to help direct potential clients to useful resources when similar matters fall outside their practice expertise.

To date, the tool is mostly an educational resource, but Bradick is hoping that external funding may later allow CuroLegal to add features that can help people file a report directly from the website and collect and aggregate data that can provide a more complete picture of hate crime victims.