23rd December 2021
A survey of more than 500 police officers and prosecutors shows that more than a half of them believes that hate crime is a serious issue. However, almost half of the respondents thinks that some of the vulnerable social groups complain for no reason. More than a third of them are convinced that the victims of hate crimes provoke the violence themselves.
These are the main insights that were concluded after the survey, initiated by the Office of the Inspector of Journalistic Ethics and the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson. The survey of law enforcement officials also shows that officers lack knowledge about the problems and culture of vulnerable social groups. Hate speech and hate crimes are not always considered to be offences that are serious enough so institutions mentioned above would make an effort to fill these gaps.
The respondents were asked to evaluate their knowledge about vulnerable social groups on a scale of 1 to 10. Final results were quite modest. Officers and prosecutors claim that they understand the problematics of persons with disabilities best (the general score is 6,5), other communities and their specifics are less familiar to them. For instance, the knowledge about LGBTI+ problematics is evaluated with the score of 5,3, understanding of Roma and Muslim cultures (history, religion, symbols, etc.) – 5,1 points. Officers and prosecutors think that they are more familiar with common stereotypes, attitudes and public opinions on such minorities. They believe themselves to be good judges of the public views on the Roma community (7,6 points), LGBTI+ persons (7,5 points), Jewish people (7,3 points).
In general, the participants of the survey agree that hate, bias and their manifestations are a serious issue, but some of the answers are inconsistent. 61% of them believe that this is a big problem. However, 34,5% of the respondents thinks that the victims of hate crimes somehow provoke violence themselves, 47% agree that some minorities complain for no reason. Almost half of the officers and prosecutors object the idea that investigation of bias-motivated offences should be the priority of law enforcement authorities.
This poll includes 474 police officers and 88 prosecutors that were surveyed online. The survey was conducted in order to find out how bias-motivated offences and hate speech are being treated in law enforcement, how officers and prosecutors are prepared to react to this type of crimes.
This data was used to organize the motivational campaign that would be dedicated to train officers and prosecutors to effectively combat hate speech and hate crimes.
The Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson Birutė Sabatauskaitė reminds that in the discourse of hate speech and hate crime we should recognize the importance of preventing discrimination. “Hate speech and hate crimes are the results of negative bias, hostility towards particular social groups. So if we want to overcome the public distinction between “them” and “us”, state institutions must work together. We can do a lot if we cooperate, learn and try to identify our unconscious bias towards someone”, says the Ombudsperson.
The Inspector of Journalistic Ethics Gražina Ramanauskaitė is happy to strengthen the cooperation with law enforcement authorities. “The survey and discussions with officers and prosecutors reveal that they do care about the issues of hate-motivated incidents but lack information and tools, how to handle such crimes properly. I hope this campaign, that is created in cooperation between our institutions, will have a positive impact on changing practices”, says the Inspector.
During the campaign officers and prosecutors will be introduced to the specific indicators of hate-motivated incidents. They also will get informational packages and tools that can be used to help people who become victims of bias-motivated crimes.
The article is a part of the project “#NoPlace4Hate: Improving Institutional Response to Hate Speech in Lithuania”. The “#NoPlace4Hate” is partially funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission (Project Agreement No. 875127 — LGKT_HS — REC-AG-2019 / REC-RRAC-RACI-AG-2019. The European Commission is not responsible for any usage of the information published in the article).