Hate crime in the justice system: A study to improve the Swedish Police Authority’s capacity to identify and investigate hate crime

Hate crimes are a particularly serious form of criminality that is to be prioritized by the Police Authority.

It is therefore deeply concerning that both state agencies and previous research point to extensive deficiencies in hate crime investigations.

These deficiencies include problems in identifying hate crimes, as well as in investigating and proving that a crime is hate based.

Few cases reach court, and it is often difficult to discern whether the hate motive has had an impact on sentencing, as is intended by the legislation.

For individual victims and vulnerable minority groups, this can contribute to marginalization and can open doors to further radicalization.The present project has been developed in collaboration with the Police Authority and aims to fill existing knowledge gaps and identify paths towards more effective hate crime screening and investigation.

In order to meet these aims, the project is based on a unique method triangulation that includes 1) reported hate crimes identified by the police, 2) reported hate crimes identified by BRÅ, 3) preparatory works, governmental guidelines and court cases, and finally, 4) interviews and focus groups with key actors within the police and the justice system.

Thus, the project combines both quantitative and qualitative analysis, which has proven successful as a means of identifying successful investigation methods in previous research.