Promising Practice

Victimisation surveys regarding exposure to hate crime

Offerundersökningar angående exponering för hatbrott

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention carries out regular victimisation surveys on exposure to hate crime. The information that is collected increases public`s awareness about hate crimes and provides data on the development of self-reported exposure to hate crime over time, including on bias motives and gender differences.

Ország

Sweden

Guidelines

Improve recording and data collection

Ground of discrimination

Flagging potential hate crimes

Monitoring progress and impact

Provision of guidance, training and capacity building

Promising practice :

Hatbrottsstatistik - Brottsförebyggande rådet (bra.se)

Organisation

Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet).

Start and end date

The Swedish Crime Survey (SCS) is conducted annually.

The School Survey on Crime is conducted every two years.

The Politician’s Safety Survey is conducted every two years.

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

The criminal justice system.
Researchers.
Non-governmental organisations.

Funding

All three victimisation surveys conducted by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention are funded by annual appropriations from the government.

Objectives

Increase awareness about the presence of hate crimes in society.
Study the development of self-reported exposure to hate crime over time.
Study the distribution of self-reported exposure to hate crime with regard to different motives and gender differences.

Outputs

Self-reported exposure to hate crime.
Analysis of data from the SCS, the Politician’s Safety Survey and the School Survey on Crime.
Report 2020:14 – Self-reported exposure to hate crime, which was published in December 2020 (English summary and full report in Swedish).

Description

SCS: A random sample of 200,000 people aged 16–84 years is selected annually. The data are collected through internet questionnaires and postal questionnaires. The data from the SCS present the percentage of people who, as victims, have stated a hate crime motive for an assault, threatening behaviour, sexual crime, mugging, harassment or online harassment. The motives included in the questionnaire are:
- skin colour, nationality or ethnic background
- religious beliefs
- sexual orientation
- transgender identity or orientation.
School Survey on Crime: A sample of 400 schools in Sweden is selected every two years. The data are collected through paper questionnaires, which students in year 9 (15 years old) fill in at school. The data from the School Survey on Crime present the percentage of all students in year 9 in Sweden who have been exposed to hate crime. The motives included in the questionnaire are:
- Swedish or foreign background
- religion
- sexual orientation
- gender identity.
Politician’s Safety Survey: All elected representatives in municipal councils, county councils and the Swedish Parliament (about 14,000 elected representatives) are surveyed every two years. The data are collected through internet questionnaires and postal questionnaires. The data from the Politician’s Safety Survey present the percentage of all elected representatives in Sweden who have been exposed to hate crime. The motives included in the questionnaire are:
- skin colour, nationality or ethnic background
- religious belief
- sexual orientation
- transgender identity or orientation.

Critical success factors

As there is a ’dark figure’ of hate crime because of the reluctance of victims to report such crimes to the police, it is important to also conduct repeat victimisation surveys to learn more about exposure to hate crime in the population.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

No participatory approach was applied.

Monitoring and evaluation

An internal evaluation was carried out after the report was published in December 2020.

Publicly available contact details

Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
Email: info@bra.se