RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - Cospe

RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - A Comparative Overview of Findings from the RAXEN NFP Reports 2001-2004
numbers of foreigners/minority nationals - see Annex I) - the following can be
noted:
France:
• 2002: 1305 racist, xenophobic and antisemitic threats and acts of intimidation
reported.
• 2003: 828 racist, xenophobic and antisemitic threats and acts of intimidation
reported.
• First six months of 2004: 829 racist, xenophobic and antisemitic threats and
acts of intimidation, including threats and acts of intimidation against the
Muslim community reported..
United Kingdom:
• 2001-2002: 54,370 racist incidents recorded by the police; of which, 30,084
were recorded as racially aggravated offences, against the person or property,
by the police.
• 2002-2003: 49,078 racist incidents recorded by the police; of which, 31,035
were recorded as racially/religiously aggravated offences, against the person or
property, by the police.
• 2003-2004: 52,694 racist incidents recorded by the police; of which 35,022
were recorded as racially/religiously aggravated offences, against the person or
property, by the police.
Comparing the highest official figures between France and the UK, the following
can be noted:
• In the 12 month period 2001-02, UK, and 2002, France – the UK had 42 times
the number of recorded incidents as France.
• In the 12 month period 2002-03, UK, and 2003, France – the UK had 59 times
the number of recorded incidents as France.
• Taking the average figure for all reported threats and acts for the years 2002
and 2003 for France, and comparing this with all recorded racist incidents for
2001-2002 and 2002-2003 for the UK – the UK had, on average, 48 times the
number of recorded racist/xenophobic incidents as France.
Whether these figures reflect large disparities in actual levels of racist crime and
violence, or the effectiveness of each Member State’s data collection, is debatable.
Although France has good data collection mechanisms in place that in theory
should be able to capture incidents of racist violence, it might be the case that these
mechanisms do not encourage reporting and/or recording of racist violence in
practice (see Table 5 in this chapter and accompanying comments).
As the above illustrates, available data needs careful interpretation if any meaning
is to be drawn from a comparative overview of the research findings. The
following section looks at how we might attempt to meaningfully interpret data as
outlined in Table 2.
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