Austria

Based on the support of an EU-funded project aimed at improving hate crime recording, on 1 November 2020, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) introduced a new electronic recording and data collection mechanism. The mechanism is supported by a MoI guidance providing a new definition of hate crime monitoring, a system of bias indicators, and improved data quality management. The introduction of the new mechanism has been complemented by an e-learning training programme for police officers, launched in August 2020 and delivered through the e-Campus of the Police Training Academy (Sicherheitsakademie, SIAK). By 10 May 2021, 22,788 police officers completed the three-module e-learning and obtained certification. Further, 207 police officers from the Federal Provinces were trained to deliver training events to front-line officers and to serve as contact points for CSOs and victim support organizations; to date, they have conducted most of the obligatory trainings for all colleagues who have completed the online training programme. Since May 2021, an additional module was launched for prosecutors and judges.

Furthermore, in 2021 MoI developed a factsheet on hate crime translated into nine languages and, together with the Institute for the Sociology of Law and Criminology (Institut für Rechts- und Kriminalsoziologie, IRKS) conducted a hate crime victimization survey on unreported cases entitled "Prevalence of bias-motivated crimes in the Austrian population". The latter, based on 2,325 telephone interviews, concluded that nearly four percent of those surveyed had been a victim of a hate crime. The perception of security of hate crime victims was significantly worse than those of other respondents who suffered a crime without bias motives. The likelihood of victims reporting hate crimes was far lower than in case of offences without bias motives. The results of the survey were included in the Pilot Report "Hate Crime in Austria" mapping the improvements in the Austrian hate crime recording and data collection since 2019, published in June 2021.

An ongoing dialogue on lessons learned and promising practices was held with international institutions, such as ODIHR, the European Commission, the EU High-level Group on combating racism, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance and its subgroups, and the EU FRA. Within the above-mentioned EU-funded project, study visits were carried out to Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovakia. Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice. Between January and March 2020, 17 consultation meetings with various civil society organisations and NGOs took place to improve the MoI's new hate crime recording mechanisms and to build trust.w hate crime recording mechanisms and to build trust.