Greece

How hate crime data is collected

The Department of Social Issues and Racism of the State Security Division of the Hellenic Greek Police Headquarters, has developed in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights and the Public Prosecution Offices a new template for collecting hate crime data. This template indicates the number of cases that constitute a hate crime, the bias motivation, and feedback from the Public Prosecution Offices and courts about the prosecution and court decisions. The same template is used for collecting hate speech statistics.

The following bias motivations are monitored: colour, race, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and disabilities. The use of this template enables a perpetrator's bias motivation to be identified and facilitates further work by the competent authorities in analysing and evaluating racist trends, and ensuring effective management of the phenomenon.

The above-mentioned Department of Social Issues and Racism is responsible for keeping statistics on incidents of racist violence. This department is also responsible for collecting, studying and evaluating annual reports submitted by other departments and offices dealing with racist violence. It is also responsible for compiling and reporting the number of cases of racist violence that were addressed by the police in the previous year. These findings are published annually in a report every February and copies are sent to the Hellenic Police Headquarters and the Chief of the Police.

Public Prosecutors' Offices record hate crimes on an individual case by case basis. When prosecutors receive a case from the police, after a citizen's complaint, or when they act ex officio, prosecutors use a specific code to indicate that the case is a hate crime investigation. This code (e.g. "RV + number" for the Public Prosecutor Office of the Court of First Instance of Athens) follows the case until it is sent to the relevant court for adjudication. The judiciary does not have a specific system for recording hate crime data. Hate crime cases are either identified by the name of the accused person or from the case number assigned by the public prosecutor.