The impact and severity of hate crimes is widespread and affects not only individual victims but instills community fear and group intimidation, adding an aggravating feature. Combating hate-motivated crimes requires a proactive, sensitive, and effective response from all components of the criminal justice system, especially law enforcement. This article discusses law enforcement’s leadership role in properly identifying and effectively investigating hate-motivated crimes. How law enforcement responds to hate crimes can have a significant and lasting impact on both victims and whole communities. An effective criminal justice response to hate crime requires a number of critical elements that include, but are not limited to: (1) accurate collection of data based on well-defined and consistent criteria to classify hate-crime activity; (2) a close police-community relationship; (3) proactive monitoring of the presence of hate propaganda and those promoting hate-motivated criminal activity; (4) hate crime training for police, investigators, prosecutors, and judges; (5) vigorous prosecutions resulting in severe and certain penalties, and stronger laws and authority for law enforcement to be used against hate crime and hate propaganda; and (6) establishment of links and cooperation among law enforcement agencies at all levels to share information, training, resources, and expertise in relation to hate crimes.