RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - Cospe

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RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - A Comparative Overview of Findings from the RAXEN NFP Reports 2001-2004 These above percentage changes can reflect: • an actual decrease or increase in reported incidents, and/or • changes in recording procedures, which may reflect changes in legislation and recording guidelines/practices The context specific accounts at the beginning of each country profile (Chapters 4 – 18), together with references to political, criminal justice and policy developments at the end of each profile, give us an indication of some of the possible reasons for the above fluctuations. Whilst an overview of trends allows for comparisons of data within countries, any significant increase or decrease in reported/recorded incidents of racist crime/violence needs to be cautiously interpreted for the following reasons: • Member States with consistently low absolute numbers, such as Denmark and Ireland (see Table 4), can report dramatic percentage increases or decreases in reports/records of racist crime and violence on the basis of very few cases. For example – a Member State with 10 cases of racist violence in one year and 20 cases the next year can report a percentage increase of 100 per cent. • In comparison, Member States with consistently high absolute numbers, such as the UK (see Table 4), will report less dramatic percentage increases or decreases in reports/records of racist crime and violence although their absolute figures far exceed those of other Member States. 19.1.5. What does/doesn’t the data tell us? Tables 2-4/Figures 3-4 reflect more about differences in data collection mechanisms than anything about the extent of racist violence in Europe. Therefore, we can conclude that: Tables 2-4/Figures 3-4 do not accurately inform us about the extent of racist crime/violence in the 15 EU Member States. If we were to read these tables at face value, as an indication of the extent of racist crime/violence in each Member State, we might (wrongly) assume that Finland or the UK have far more racist crime than other Member States, while countries such as Denmark and Luxembourg appear to have a minor problem with racist crime. Tables 2-4/Figures 3-4 do inform us about gross under-reporting of racist crime/violence. Comparing raw data of official reports of racist crime as a percentage of the nonnational population for each Member State, it appears that racist crime is rarely reported. Tables 2-4/Figures 3-4 more accurately reflect the ineffectiveness and disparity in official data collection mechanisms across the 15 EU Member States. 162
RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - A Comparative Overview of Findings from the RAXEN NFP Reports 2001-2004 Given that (a) all Member States have non-national populations ranging from 2.0% to 8.9% of their national populations (and that these figures do not include national minorities/ethnic minorities, who also experience racist violence) and (b) given that racist crime, according to evidence from NGOs and other sources (as reported in the country profiles in this report), appears to be a significant problem in many Member States – it would appear that official data collection mechanisms are not able to capture the ‘true’ extent of racist crime/violence. Looking at Tables 2 - 4/Figures 3-4 we can suggest the following for most countries of the EU15: People are not reporting incidents of racist crime/violence The authorities are not recording reports of racist crime/violence, and/or are not making data publicly available. There is no tradition of official data collection on racist crime/violence. In sum – there is gross under-reporting and under-recording of racist crime/violence in most Member States. As a result, it is extremely difficult to estimate the ‘true’ extent of racist crime/violence across the EU. 19.2. DATA COLLECTION MECHANISMS IN THE EU 15 19.2.1. Official Data in the EU 15 Table 2 shows that, on the basis of information made publicly available to the RAXEN NFPs, there are three Member States – Greece, Italy and Portugal - that have no official criminal justice data on racist crime/violence, or data on discrimination that includes racist crime and violence. Spain only released limited figures on racist/xenophobic acts for 2001 at the bequest of the Spanish NFP. Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands concentrate their data collection on reports of ‘discriminatory offences’. While Luxembourg’s data collection is limited, Belgium and the Netherlands have good mechanisms in place to record a broad range of discriminations. Belgium is also able to identify the number of discriminatory complaints that are related to racist violence, while the Netherlands is able to reveal whether reports are related to ‘oral utterances’ and related to the activities of the extreme right. As a reflection of their National Socialist history, Austria and Germany focus their comprehensive data collection procedures on the activities of extreme rightwing groups. The Austrian data does not reveal any detail about violent racist offences, but the German data does. To a lesser extent, Denmark focuses its data collection on complaints relating to hate/racist speech and the activities of the 163
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RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - Cospe

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