SENATOR SLAP VOTES TO ENHANCE CONNECTICUT HATE CRIME POLICIES

April 28, 2026

Today, State Senator Derek Slap (D-West Hartford) voted to enhance and improve Connecticut’s statutes for hate crimes, seeking to better protect the people of Connecticut against undue discrimination and hate.

“With hate crimes doubling nationally in the last decade and more than 100 hate crimes reported each year in Connecticut, we need to make sure our communities are free from hate and intimidation,” said Sen. Slap. “This bill will make it easier to understand the penalties and consequences of hate crimes and ensures intimidation, physical harm, damage to houses of worship and other offenses will be treated with the seriousness they deserve. I’m grateful to Senator Winfield and the Judiciary Committee for their work on this bill.”

Senate Bill 90 makes adjustments to hate crime statutes including combining protected classes (disability, gender identity/expression, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, color, ethnicity, alienage, national origin and age) into one protected social category.

It relabels and consolidates existing laws, including intimidation based on bigotry or bias and hate crimes causing physical injury or contact, better aligning the state’s hate crime laws and making them simpler and easier to understand and enforce.

The bill also creates a dedicated hate crime for damaging houses of worship, with higher penalties if damage exceeds $10,000, and labels threatening a house of worship or religiously affiliated community center as a hate crime.

It further extends persistent offender status to offenders committing hate crimes multiple times, allows for a hate crimes diversion program as a condition of probation under accelerated rehabilitation, extends the attorney general’s authority to investigate hate crimes and initiate legal action and expands the Hate Crimes Investigative Unit’s duties to incorporate all hate crimes.

Additional provisions include a requirement for the Connecticut Sentencing Commission to review the appropriateness of state hate crime penalties and report recommendations by January 1, 2027.

With the bill’s passage today, it next heads to the House for further consideration.