Nassau County prosecutors and a Holocaust museum are teaming up for a new program to fight hate crimes that will focus more on education than punishment, officials said Monday.

Prosecutors said they will offer defendants accused of hate crimes, including antisemitic ones, opportunities to undergo educational programs in exchange for reducing their jail or probation time, Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said.

“I see education as more important than jail,” Donnelly said at a news conference at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove. “What I've instructed my hate crimes unit to do is if they [defendants] come up and they complete the education program, then they can lower the charges and give them a better plea” deal.

The district attorney’s office said it recently implemented this new model, allowing two defendants to enter into a plea agreement in which they had to undergo antibias training, complete community service and take a guided tour of the museum.

“Nassau County will not stand by and let antisemitic crimes be committed,” Donnelly said. “We will prosecute people who cross that line. But an important first step is something that's offered right here at this museum, and that's education.”

Alon Milwicki, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center and an expert on antisemitism, said programs like the Nassau district attorney’s approach can be successful in curbing hate crimes if done right.

“When it comes to antisemitism, the best weapon we've got in our tool shed is education,” he said. “The only pathway through, whether it's antisemitism or other kinds of racism, is honest, open, discussive education.”

He equated a poor anti-hate program to someone who gets speeding tickets, must do an online safe driving course, and simply “clicks” their way through it without really learning anything.

The new anti-hate crime campaign will also include ads on television, radio and social media that will aim “to stop hate before it escalates,” said Bernie Furshpan, vice chair of the Holocaust museum.

“Across Long Island, we are witnessing a disturbing surge in bias incidents and hateful rhetoric,” he said. “Too many lives have been impacted by words that wound and actions that terrorize.”

“We know that hatred does not appear in a vacuum,” he added. “It grows where ignorance persists, where intolerance is allowed to fester and where words go unchecked.”

The museum educates about 35,000 school children a year, and while those programs are effective, they need to be more widespread, said Alan Mindel, board chair at the museum.

“We've come to the conclusion that we have to go into larger arenas to try to spread our messages further,” Mindel said in an interview. “We can't talk to everybody, but we're trying to, and we're a small, volunteer, charitable organization … We believe we're punching above our weight, frankly, but it's not necessarily enough, not even close.”

Hate crimes statewide and on Long Island are on the rise, with religion the most common motivation, according to a report issued last August by state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Reported hate crimes statewide went from 644 in 2019 to 1,089 in 2023, the report said. Nassau County increased from 34 to 75 reported incidents between 2019 and 2023. Suffolk County increased from 20 to 31 in the same period.

Statewide, about half the reported hate crimes — 543 out of 1,089 – involved religious-related bias. The bulk of them – 477 – were classified as anti-Jewish, the report found.