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Hate crime provisions in the Criminal Code have been amended to include transgender identity among the protected characteristics.
The Swedish Police Authority and Victim Support Sweden have worked to enhance the skills of police officers and victim support volunteers to identify hate crimes, with the aim of increasing public confidence in the criminal justice system and reducing the number of unreported hate crimes.
The Police have organized training events and conferences to improve the ability of reception police officers, regional command centre staff, Police Academy students and local police officers to recognize hate crimes, in order to ensure more accurate statistics on reported hate crimes. During the training events, the Police collaborated closely with civil society working on LGBTI issues, women's rights and anti-Semitism, and with various state authorities. Furthermore, the Police continued to refine and optimize investigation work, including in collaboration with the prosecution.
The Police Advisory Board met four times in 2019, including with Roma groups/organizations, the Swedish Federation for LGBTQI Rights, Full Personality Expression Sweden and representatives of the Muslim and Jewish communities. A key objective of the Board is to increase confidence among groups targeted by hate crime.
In June 2019, the Swedish Prosecution Service organized national hate crime conferences, aimed at improving practitioners' awareness and ability to respond to hate crimes. Through a collaborative project with Victim Support Sweden, the prosecution service addressed the issue of hate crime victim support and increasing the number of reported hate crimes.
The Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority continued to sponsor several civil society organizations and provided support to victims of hate crime through its Crime Victim Fund.
In its "Concluding observations on the combined twenty-second and twenty-third periodic reports of Sweden," the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended that Sweden develop a clear strategy to ensure better scrutiny of the way police and prosecutors deal with hate crimes.
In the report following a joint visit of the Personal Representatives of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combatting Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims and on Combatting Anti-Semitism, to Sweden, the Personal Representative on Combating Anti-Semitism recommended that the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brä) start reporting in more detail on the victims and perpetrators of anti-Semitic hate crimes.
ODIHR observes that Sweden has not reported information on sentenced hate crime cases to ODIHR.
The Hate Crime Units in the Stockholm and South Police Regions were expanded. A new unit has been created in the West Region. Each unit consists of about ten employees. All police regions have elaborated action plans for increasing their ability to counteract hate crime.
The Swedish Police have identified and established co-operation with specialized hate crime prosecutors on a regional level. At the national level, co-operation takes place with the Prosecution Development Centre in Malmö, and has included joint police and prosecutors training sessions.
The Prosecution Development Centre in Malmö, which co-ordinates the Prosecution Authority's response to hate crimes, has summarized and updated its policy and published a Legal memorandum on hate crimes. This guidance document provides advice to prosecutors on investigation of hate crimes in order to ensure a coherent and effective approach across Sweden.
Three training sessions of two days each and an advanced pilot programme of five days were delivered as part of the national training for police on hate crimes. On a regional level, the specialized Hate Crime Units disseminated training to the front line police officers. An interactive online training on hate crime is under development for all police officers and will be made available through the police intranet, in addition to existing guidance on the identification and investigation of hate crimes.
As in every year, the police organized a national consultative forum to co-ordinate its action against hate crimes with civil society and affected groups, in addition to regional and local interactions. The police raised public awareness of hate crimes through social media and other topical involvement – such as participation in direct dialogue, media appearances, the production of three short films about hate crimes and participation in LGBT Pride festivals.
The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and the Equality Ombudsman's Office co-ordinate collaboration, exchange of experiences and networking among local authorities in order to improve local responses to hate crimes.
The Crime Victim Fund of the Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority and other public bodies sponsored a number of civil society initiatives to raise awareness of hate crimes among the LGBT community, the Afro-Swedish population, as well as the general public. Projects to develop tools for the authorities to improve their response to hate crime victims were also funded. Direct support to victims of hate crime and trainings for government by civil society groups have also received public funding.
408 homophobic hate crimes and 54 transphobic hate crimes were reported under this category.
