Promising Practice

Instruction 30/2019 (VII.18.) on the performance of police tasks related to the handling of hate crimes

Az országos rendőrfőkapitány 30/2019. (VII. 18.) ORFK utasítása a gyűlölet-bűncselekmények kezelésével összefüggő rendőrségi feladatok végrehajtásáról
Instruction 30/2019 (VII.18.) on the performance of police tasks related to the handling of hate crimes provides guidance on uniform, effective and professional law enforcement responses to hate crimes.
Country
Hungary
Type
Improve recording and data collection
Category
Flagging potential hate crimes
Provision of guidance, training and capacity building
Use of bias-indicators

Organisation

Hungarian National Police Headquarters (Országos Rendőr-főkapitányság).

Start and end date

Start date:

2019.

End date:

Ongoing (as of May 2021).

Scope

National

Target group(s)

  • Police officers.
  • Police patrol officers.

Funding

The police instruction regulates the performance of general police duties and therefore does not require a separate funding source.

Objectives

  • Provide an effective, lawful and professional law enforcement response to hate crime.
  • Enhance the investigation of potential hate crime.
  • Help police officers to recognise hate crime and gather evidence of hate crime for potential prosecution.

Outputs

  • The instruction, which includes bias indicators.
  • Training for law enforcement and criminal justice personnel on use of the Instruction.

Description

The instruction includes a list of bias indicators, which were prepared on the basis of an international sample. Bias indicators are essential for police to detect and investigate hate crime and for providing a lawful and professional law enforcement response.

According to the instruction, police officers are obliged to consider the possible presence of a bias motive in all criminal offences during proceedings. If there is a suspicion of bias in the background to the offence, police officers should take all necessary measures to conduct an effective investigation into the subject of the prejudicial motive. Police officers are obliged to take or initiate measures within their area of responsibility to counteract potentially dangerous situations and prevent the commission of crimes based on bias.

In 2019, training sessions were conducted for law enforcement and criminal justice personnel on the use of the bias indicators and on the characteristics of hate crimes. The list of bias indicators, with explanations and examples, was provided to all police headquarters and stations.

Critical success factors

  • Provide training on use of the instruction and bias indicators.
  • Disseminate the instruction and the list of bias indicators.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

The bias indicators were developed through cooperation between the Hungarian National Police Headquarters and the Working Group Against Hate Crimes.

The Working Group Against Hate Crimes is an expert coalition of four non-governmental organisations and individual experts and scholars that has been focusing on the Hungarian authorities’ responses to hate crimes against vulnerable groups since 2012.

Monitoring and evaluation

The training obligations contained in the instruction were documented by police forces. All police officers had to be aware of the bias indicators by the end of 2019.

There is no separate monitoring.

Publicly available contact details

No consent for contact.