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

Hate crimes recorded by police

By bias motivation By type of crime

Download official data

National developments

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.

International reports

Racism and xenophobia

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.

Anti-Semitism

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.