Hate crime investigations should become more effective

The Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has launched its report entitled "Making hate crime visible in the European Union: acknowledging victims’ rights" at a panel discussion organized by the European Parliament's Anti-racism and Diversity Intergroup. MEP Lívia Járóka, Rapporteur of the EU strategy on Roma inclusion reminded that the prohibition of collecting data on the ethnicity of victims and offenders makes it very difficult to provide reliable statistics on the patterns and trends in racist crime. According to the EPP Group MEP, in the absence of official data, NGOs may play a definitive role in unveiling the extent and characteristics of hate crime. Járóka reminded that only in five EU Member States existed some kind of special training on racist crime for police officials, however it would have been essential to provide them clear procedural and practical guidance on how to effectively respond to hate crime, focusing on the needs and rights of the victim. "Countries should introduce rules which allow the police to initially record any crime as ‘racially motivated’ on the claim of a victim or a witness, as well as to appoint individual officers at regional or local level to tackle racist crime" – she suggested.