Training police

Related commitments and recommendations

Participating States should consider further measures to ensure that law-enforcement officials are well equipped to prevent and respond effectively to hate crimes. Measures could include:

• Promptly investigating hate crimes and ensuring that the motives of those convicted of hate crimes are acknowledged and publicly condemned by the relevant authorities and by the political leadership, in line with Decision 9/09 of the OSCE Ministerial Council;
• Ensuring co-operation, where appropriate, at the national and international levels, including with relevant international bodies and between police forces, to combat violent organized hate crime, in line with Decision 9/09 of the OSCE Ministerial Council;
• Providing adequate security to vulnerable communities and investing in necessary resources to protect vulnerable community institutions and places of worship, cemeteries, faith-based schools and religious heritage sites;
• Ensuring that individuals and groups can exercise their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in safety and without discrimination;
• Conducting awareness-raising and education efforts, particularly with law-enforcement authorities, directed towards communities and civil society groups that assist victims of hate crimes, in line with Decision 9/09 of the OSCE Ministerial Council;
• Encouraging systems of reporting by third parties for victims who are unable or unwilling to report hate crimes directly to police and criminal-justice agencies;
• Introducing or further developing professional training and capacity-building activities for law-enforcement, prosecution and judicial officials dealing with hate crimes, including training and resources to enable law-enforcement officers to identify, investigate and register bias motives, and ensuring that prosecutors have been trained on how to present evidence of bias motivation;
• Making use of ODIHR’s programme on Training against Hate Crimes for Law Enforcement;
• Building better relationships between criminal-justice agencies and victim groups, with a view to encouraging victims to report hate crimes and witnesses to contribute to solving and prosecuting hate crimes;
• Diversifying membership of law-enforcement and prosecution agencies, so as to increase representation of minority groups;
• Developing and implementing targeted prevention programmes and initiatives to combat hate crimes; and
• Drawing on resources developed by ODIHR in the area of education, training and awareness-raising to ensure a comprehensive approach to tackling hate crime.