Probe from the state’s Criminal Justice Commission hints at need for creating protected class category for hotline staffers and crime victim support workers

By Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

A surge in harassment and spam calls to a statewide hotline for victims of hate and bias crimes, and an unusual decrease in legitimate bias complaints being reported, is prompting calls for reform from state officials.

The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission published their report on July 1, detailing a 7% drop from 2023 to 2024 in reports to the state’s Bias Response Hotline. This includes reports of physical hate crimes and verbal harassment, such as slurs. 

Meanwhile, hotline staffers dealt with a 165% increase in spam calls, and calls where abusive language and harassment was directed at them, according to the report.

The findings prompted Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield to call the 142-page report “a sobering gut check and a call to action.”

“We’re seeing some Oregonians retreat into silence, while others are just starting to feel safe enough to speak up. We’re also seeing harassment aimed directly at the people helping victims,” Rayfield wrote in a news release Monday. “It’s our responsibility to make sure every Oregonian — regardless of background or identity — can be heard, supported, and connected to the help they need.”

State analysts logged more than 2,700 reported incidents or crimes during the year of 2024, a notable, though small, change from the more than 2,900 acts recorded in 2023. They wrote that this is less likely the result of a decrease in acts of bias being perpetrated, and more likely that victims felt less confident reporting them. Hotline staffers dealt with more than 2,200 spam calls and calls where abusive language and threats were directed at them, the analysts report. 

Staffers being spammed, harassed

“The Hotline has been receiving strongly-worded/hostile/aggressive communications from individuals registering complaints about the existence of the hotline, its role in helping victims of bias, and perceived overreach of a governmental agency,” the report’s authors wrote. “Advocates are not currently being targeted due to their occupation per se, but because of their employer. CJC will continue to review these harassing/prank and incoherent/gibberish communications.”

The Bias Response Hotline was established in 2019 by Oregon lawmakers with the goal of supporting crime victims, particularly in areas where there is limited funding or access to services meant to protect victims of such crimes or to support them in the aftermath, such as therapy and counseling programs. 

The number of spam calls made to the line between 2023 and 2024 grew so dramatically that state officials stopped tracking them altogether in March of 2024, according to the report, “in an effort to prioritize victim support on the Hotline.” The report’s authors said it highlights “an increase in micro-aggressions, civil rights violations and discrimination targeting non-protected classes, such as civil rights advocates and social service providers.”

Reporting declines 

Analysts found that victims who identified as Black, Indigenous and people of color, and victims who identified as gender non-conforming, were 16% and 34% less likely to report bias acts to the hotline in 2024 as they were in 2023. That change contrasted with an increase in reports of incidents and crimes in 2024 from female, white, Asian and elderly Oregonians more than 60 years old. 

Crimes and incidents perpetrated on the basis of the victim’s race, sexual orientation, and national origin were the most common forms of reported bias. There was a nearly 40% decrease year-over-year in reports from victims targeted for their religious beliefs, and a 25% decrease in reports from victims being targeted for a disability. There was a 12% decrease in anti-color reports, which is based on complexion regardless of racial or ethnic identity. 

The report’s authors argue that the decrease in reporting from some racial and ethnic groups is a “tapering off” that “should not be interpreted as an indication of a decline in bias crimes and incidents targeting BIPOC individuals,” but warned that some in those communities, and especially younger Oregonians, are reporting to the hotline far less than white, Asian and senior Oregonians. 

Recommendations

The report makes several recommendations for the hotline and for further research, such as expanding staffing and technological capacity to address the hotline employees’ “harassment-related burdens,” increasing privacy protection for victims who call the hotline, studying causes of declining victim reporting, and providing hotline and bias reporting training for law enforcement and district attorneys. 

There was a 58% drop in calls forwarded to the line from local law enforcement in 2024, according to the report, which “may reflect a breakdown in previously strong collaboration and raises concerns about underreporting or missed opportunities for support,” authors wrote. The 2019 law that created the hotline, Senate Bill 577, directs agencies to refer victims to it if “qualifying local victims’ services are unavailable.”

And in a nod to the conditions facing staffers, state analysts called for “additional research” into whether other crime victim advocates and service providers are experiencing higher levels of harassment, noting that “data is needed before occupation can be recommended as an additional protected class.” 

This story first appeared in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.