Ongoing Hate Crime Trainings for Police Officers

Organisation

Ministry of the Interior (Министерство на вътрешните работи).

Start and end date

Start date:

2011

End date:

ongoing (as of May 2021).

Scope

National, regional and local levels.

Target group(s)

Police officers within the regional police directorates and the General Directorate National Police of the Ministry of the Interior.

Funding

Budget of the Ministry of the Interior and theme-specific project funding.

Objectives

• Increase the capacity of police officers to effectively implement European and local standards and practices in recording, investigating and detecting hate crimes.
• Raise awareness among law enforcement officers of the different categories of hate crime and the methods for their effective identification.

Outputs

• Increased capacity of police officers to handle hate crimes by direct participation of a large number of officers in training.
• Further continuous dissemination of knowledge from trained to non-trained police officers through personal exchanges and the introduction of guidebooks and manuals.

Description

The project includes a series of training sessions that are targeted at police officers and their capacity to record, detect and investigate hate crimes; these sessions cover different topics, including minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex; and antisemitism.

• On the basis of approved training plans, training sessions are held once a month in all regional police directorates of the Ministry of the Interior; the curriculum pays particular attention to human rights issues.
• The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Training Against Hate Crimes for Law Enforcement programme was implemented to increase the capacity of law enforcement officers to handle hate crimes.
• The European Police and Respect for Human Rights project was implemented, with stakeholders from Belgium, Bulgaria and Germany. Training sessions are aimed at forming non-discriminatory attitudes towards everyday police work.
• Training for police work in a multi-ethnic environment, with a particular focus on Roma communities, is organised by the Ministry of the Interior in partnership with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Roma community leaders.
• The JUSTROM and JUSTROM2 projects were implemented. These involve training police trainers on discrimination in the Roma community, in partnership with the Council of Europe. A guidebook was also published on this topic. The projects also focus on increasing knowledge of discrimination issues, complaints procedures and judicial proceedings among women and girls of the Roma community.
• Training of police officers and prosecutors is carried out under the Building a Comprehensive Criminal Justice Response to Hate Crime project in partnership with OSCE. As part of this, a manual on joint hate crime training for police and prosecutors was introduced.
• Training on the topic of ‘Antisemitism and hate crimes: challenges, opportunities and future recommendations’ is organised in partnership with OSCE, the Organization of Jews in Bulgaria and the World Jewish Congress. The Ministry of the Interior has designated a national coordinator for communication with the Jewish community.
• Training sessions focused on hate crimes with homophobic and transphobic grounds are carried out in partnership with the local LGBT youth organization Deystvie.

Critical success factors

• Participation of experts and trainers from international organisations and NGOs with diverse expertise.
• Exchanges of best practices with other EU Member States within project activities.
• Covering different topics within the framework of hate crimes to enhance police officers’ capacity to recognise and identify a wide range of hate crimes.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

Ministry of the Interior and other government institutions, OSCE, the Council of Europe and NGOs.

Monitoring and evaluation

The training sessions normally conclude with an assessment or practical simulations.

Publicly available contact details

Email: mdminchev.150@mvr.bg