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
19.3.1. Who are the victims of racist crime and violence?
The RAXEN reports identified a variety of minority non-nationals/non-citizens of
EU Member States as the primary victims of racist crime and violence. They also
identified nationals and citizens who belong to minority groups as victims of racist
crime and violence.
Within these broad categories a number of groups can be singled out as being
particularly vulnerable to racist crime and violence.
While each Member State can identify specific nationalities or groups who are
vulnerable to racist crime and violence, the following are consistently referred to in
NFP reports (listed in alphabetical order, and not indicative of the extent of
victimisation experienced by any one group):
• Ethnic minorities (in the case of the UK where ethnic minority data is
collected)
• Illegal immigrants
• Jews
• Muslims
• North Africans
• People from the former Yugoslavia
• Refugees/asylum seekers
• Roma/Sinti/‘Gypsies’
While this list is not exhaustive, it does give some indication of dominant
vulnerable groups.
Within each of the above groups there is great variation in experience of racist
discrimination, crime and violence as a reflection of each individual’s demographic
characteristics and personal circumstances with respect to, for example, gender,
age, income, place of residence, and prior experience of victimisation. One’s
likelihood of being victimised is enhanced by certain personal characteristics and
circumstances – such as being poor, living on a high crime estate, or being single.
This is not to suggest that people should be blamed for their own victimisation, but
rather to recognise that certain people or groups are more likely to experience racist
crime and violence as a result of a combination of personal characteristics and
circumstances which make them more vulnerable to crime. In the same vein, racist
offenders are more likely to target particular individuals, groups, homes, shops and
neighbourhoods as ‘easy’ targets 105 .
Looking at evidence from individual Member States the following can be noted;
for example:
105
Farrell, G. (1992) Multiple Victimisation: Its Extent and Significance, International
Review of Victimology, 2: 85-102; Phillips, C. and Sampson, A. (1998) Preventing
Repeated Racial Victimization, British Journal of Victimology, 38(1): 124-144.
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