NewsHow to combat hate crime with vocational training? Experts meet in Budapest to discuss
On 25 April the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) hosted at its premises in Budapest a one-day Conference on Hate Crime and Hate Speech, organised in cooperation with the team on combating hate speech and hate crime
of the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST). This is the result of a longstanding cooperation within the scope of the Working Group on Hate crime training and capacity building for law enforcement, jointly chaired by DG JUST and CEPOL (under the umbrella of the EU High Level Group on combating hate speech and hate crime).
The Conference brought together around 80 expert professionals from 25 EU Member States, the European Commission, EU agencies, international organisations, civil society, academia and law enforcement. It offered participants the opportunity to identify action areas, exchange views and experiences regarding how to address different forms of hate crime and hate speech at an operational level, and also by means of training. The aim was to better understand this phenomenon and explore new ways of multidisciplinary cooperation with a results-oriented approach in order to support the victims of such crimes and prosecute the perpetrators.
The conference focused, among others, on the challenges of effective investigations of hate crime and hate speech, the importance and challenges of prosecuting hate crimes, the training of law enforcement on this issue, and cooperation between law enforcement and civil society organisations across the hate crime/hate speech response system. The Fundamental Rights Agency recent report on Addressing discrimination and racism in policing was also presented.
The above meeting was followed, on 26 April, by the Joint meeting of the Working Groups on hate crime reporting and data collection, hate crime training and hate crime victims support under the umbrella of the EU High-Level Group on combating hate speech and hate crime. Participants discussed learners’ needs and motivations when it comes to online learning on hate crime and hate speech and the way forward based on the recommendations of the Conference on 25 April. Also on the agenda were the following topics: cooperation with civil society organisations; future challenges and intervention areas in the intersection of hate crime victims support, data collection methodologies and law enforcement training; online learning to enhance effective training for law enforcement and criminal justice agencies.
Loading data
Related Tags
The protection of fundamental rights has always been at the core of CEPOL’s work. Together with DG JUST, CEPOL is chairing the Working Group on Hate crime training and capacity building for law enforcement. CEPOL supports the fight against all types of hate crime and hate speech by offering law enforcement officials relevant training opportunities, both onsite and online (i.e. webinars organised in cooperation with the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, self-paced online module on Hate Crime). More information regarding this year’s training offer on the protection of fundamental rights is available in CEPOL’s Training Catalogue 2024.
