Hate crime 2018 – Statistics of police reports with identified hate crime motives and self-reported vulnerability to hate crime (Hatbrott 2018 – Statistik över polisanmälningar med identifierade hatbrottsmotiv och självrapporterad utsatthet för hatbrott)

Country

Sweden

Title

Hate crime 2018 – Statistics of police reports with identified hate crime motives and self-reported vulnerability to hate crime (Hatbrott 2018 – Statistik över polisanmälningar med identifierade hatbrottsmotiv och självrapporterad utsatthet för hatbrott) - The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
(Brottsförebyggande rådet, Brå )

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Year

2019

Type of publication

Hate crime reporting

Geographical coverage

National

Area/location of interest

Not applicable - national level

Type of Institution

Public authority

Institution

Sweden, Brottsförebyggande rådet, Brå (Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention)

Main Thematic Focus

Hate crime

Target Population

General population

Key findings

The report shows that of the types of hate crimes identified as antireligious hate crimes, hate crimes with Islamophobic motives are the most frequent. In 2018, 562 police reports concerned such crimes, which was a 28 % increase compared to 2016. Statistics show that the number of police reports on hate crimes with Islamophobic motives were at a relatively stable level between the years 2008 and 2013. Since then there has been a yearly increase up until 2018. The most common types of hate crimes with Islamophobic motives in 2018 were unlawful threats and molestation (39 %), followed by agitation against an ethnic or national group (32 %). Violent crimes represented about 6 %.

Methodology (Qualitative/Quantitative and exact type used, questionnaires etc)

Quantitative (Examination and analysis of police reports of hate crimes)

Sample details and representativeness

The target population for the survey was police reports from 2018 relating to the crime categories: violent crime (homicide, attempted homicide, assault and assault against a public servant), unlawful threat, non-sexual molestation, defamation, criminal damage, graffiti, agitation against a population group, unlawful discrimination and a selection of other offences. The sample was a simple random sample with a sample size of 50 % of the population, drawn two months subsequent to the end of the month in which the police report was registered. Of a total of 398,000 police reports for the full year, the sample comprised 197,000 reports, to which the computerised search was applied. The computerised search was based on a list of 383 search words relating to a number of specific crime categories. Reports identified by this computerised search method were studied manually in three steps. Details of reports considered to meet the authority’s definition of a hate crime were coded. Finally, an estimation procedure was applied to produce population-level estimates based on the random sample of police reports examined. These population-level estimates constituted the statistics on police reports with identified hate crime motives.

DISCLAIMERThe information presented here is collected under contract by the FRA's research network FRANET. The information and views contained do not necessarily reflect the views or the official position of the FRA.