Gov. Bruce Rauner announced new developments in a plan to fight against hate crimes in Illinois by improving law enforcement training at a press conference Monday.

Rauner highlighted a new partnership between Illinois State Police and the Anti-Defamation League to improve hate crime training for officers. The announcement built on a four-part plan to prevent hate crimes, which seeks to improve hate crime curriculum in the public education system and strengthen hate crime laws and penalties, among other things.

“As we are all too well aware, hate crimes are on the rise in America and around the world,” Rauner said at the press conference. “Violence and acts of bigotry and prejudice against people (are) purely based upon … their backgrounds, their ethnicity, their race or their religion; and we’ve got to do everything we can to work against this scourge.”

In 2015, the most recent year federal statistics on hate crimes are available, the FBI reported 90 incidents of hate crimes out of 741 participating agencies in Illinois.

Jessica Gall, associate regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, praised the state in taking a “leadership role” in its response to hate crimes. She said the organization looks forward to working with the state to develop its new police training curriculum.

“Hate crimes and hate incidents have (a) unique and devastating impact in our communities,” Gall said at the press conference. “Training first responders to identify, investigate and appropriately respond to these types of crimes will only serve to strengthen the relationships that law enforcement has in our community.”

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