Sweden

Sweden regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Sweden's criminal law contains a general penalty enhancement provision. Sweden includes defamation, hate speech and discrimination crimes in its data. Hate crime data are collected by the National Council for Crime Prevention and are based on information from the police and the prosecution authority. Since 2012, the number of hate crime cases is estimated based on a statistical sample of police reports. Since 2016, hate crime reports are published only every second year. Three different victimization surveys, used to measure unreported hate crime, are conducted regularly at one, two and three-year intervals, respectively.

How hate crime data is collected

The police officer or civil clerk who receives a report of hate crime must highlight a possible hate crime by ticking a mandatory field in the electronic report system (RAR). The police can also specify the circumstances by indicating the hate crime motive in the narrative of the report. The practice varies between different police regions in Sweden, with some regions encouraging officers to provide details in the narrative report; others attach a document with information or leave comments in the reporting system.

The police training programme on hate crime instructs recording officers to write a narrative report that details why the case might be a hate crime in the relevant section of the form. Police staff can also make use of guidelines that are available on the intranet and via a dedicated app. A pop-up window providing a hate crime definition appears on the relevant question in the reporting system.

Any crime can be registered as a hate crime. Registered bias motivations are those included in Swedish law: race, skin colour, national or ethnic background, faith and sexual orientation or transgender identity or expression. The Swedish police are obliged to write up everything that is reported, regardless of whether or not it is possible to investigate the case. Thus, hate crimes cannot be distinguish from hate incidents.

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention compiles national statistics on hate crime by using specific keyword searches in their database. These numbers are not based on the cases highlighted by police as hate crimes.

The prosecutors and police systems are separate, which means that the box that the police tick to highlight potential hate crimes does not appear when a case is transferred. The prosecutorial authorities are, however, able to highlight hate crime cases in their systems. Prosecutors have extensive guidelines on how to identify and prosecute hate crimes. The Courts are not obliged to specify, either in text or in the list of which sections of the law that has been considered in the verdict, whether the penalty enhancement paragraph has been considered.

Legislationline | TANDIS

SELECT YEAR

Official Data

Year	Hate crimes recorded by police	Prosecuted	Sentenced
2019	Not available	Not available	Not available
2018	5858	218	-
2017	Not available	Not available	Not available
2016	4862	257	Not available
2015	4859	255	Not available

National developments

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.

International reports

Racism and xenophobia, Bias against Muslims

The United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) published relevant recommendations in its "Report from the thirty-fifth session: Compilation on Sweden."

Bias against Roma and Sinti

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published relevant recommendations in its 2019 Roma and Travellers Survey findings, "Roma and Travellers in six countries."