Promising Practice

Guide to working with people with developmental disability who are victims of hate crime

Hate crime
Guía de actuación con víctimas de delitos de odio con discapacidad del desarrollo
The guide aims to support police officers when dealing with victims of hate crime against people with disabilities and when investigating hate crime against people with disabilities.
Country
Spain
Guidelines
Encourage reporting
Ground of discrimination
Outreach to communities at risk of hate crime victimisation
Provision of guidance, training and capacity building
Specialist victim support services

Promising practice :

Guía de actuación con víctimas de delitos de odio con discapacidad del desarrol…

Organisation

Hate Crimes National Office (Oficina Nacional de Lucha Contra los Delitos de Odio).

Start and end date

Start date:

November 2020.

End date:

Ongoing (as of May 2021).

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

  • Security forces.
  • The general public.

Funding

Ministry of the Interior.

Objectives

  • Training of security forces.
  • Prevent hate incidents and crimes and improve the response to these types of incidents and crimes.
  • Attention to the needs of victims with disabilities when reporting on hate incidents and crimes.
  • Reduce under-reporting in this area.

Outputs

  • Publicity campaign on reporting hate crimes.
  • Guidelines for law enforcement on hate crimes against people with disabilities.

Description

Intellectual or developmental disability is not always easy to see at first glance, which means that people with disabilities may experience situations of greater vulnerability. They often encounter barriers that may come from an unfamiliar context, such as the use of uniforms and technical and complicated language. These situations can be minimised by using simple language to explain to them what is happening so that they understand. The guide aims to support police officers when dealing with victims of disability hate crime and when investigating disability hate crime.

Critical success factors

  • The commitment of all actors involved.
  • The inclusion of civil society organisations that represent the target group.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

This guide has been prepared in collaboration with civil society. The organisation Plena Inclusión was consulted, mainly because it works with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities on a daily basis and because collaborations have already been set up in other areas of the fight against hate crimes. It is also an organisation that is developing the role of a facilitator, mainly to support victims or witnesses with intellectual or developmental disabilities to promote access to justice under optimal conditions of equality from the first police contact.

Monitoring and evaluation

Not applicable

Publicly available contact details

Hate Crimes National Office (Oficina Nacional de Lucha Contra los Delitos de Odio (mir.es))