At present, 13 national workshops have already taken place in Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
Effective implementation of EU law addressing hate crime relies on proper investigation, i.e. ensuring that the police can properly identify hate crime victims and record different forms of bias motivation at the time of reporting. Doing so will support the investigation and prosecution of hate crime and provide a basis for specialised victim support.
Acknowledging this, since 2016 the EU High-Level Group on combating hate speech and hate crime has mandated FRA to help authorities in Member States improve their methods of recognising and recording hate crimes and develop robust and comprehensive national data collection systems.
FRA, together with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), provides practical assistance through tailored workshops in national languages aimed at law enforcement and criminal justice bodies. The workshops use the Key guiding principles on improving the recording of hate crime by law enforcement authorities to identify and address of gaps in existing hate crime recording and data collection practices and discuss ways to improve these practices through practical steps and specific operational measures.
Any EU Member State interested in taking advantage of the technical assistance provided by FRA and ODIHR can email hatecrime@fra.europa.eu to learn more. The workshops are tailored to the national needs, and can be organised for one or two days. FRA and ODIHR cover their costs and sponsor the translation/interpretation, as required.
