Monitoring hate crime in Ireland: towards a uniform reporting mechanism?

Data on hate crime is necessary for: the development of informed policy to tackle hate crime; an increased awareness of hate crime in social conscience generally and promoting investigation and prosecution of hate crimes. In 2003, participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) made a commitment to “collect and keep records on reliable information and statistics on hate crimes, including on forms of violent manifestations of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, and anti-Semitism”. Whine observes that the EU Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia, and the EU Victims’ Directive, also place such obligations on Member States to accurately record levels of hate crime. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have a particularly significant role to play in respect of the collection of data on hate crime. CSOs may provide for the collection of data on hate crime where the state does not, or for recording categories of bias motivation which the state does not provide for (Haynes and Schweppe). CSOs provide an alternative means of reporting for communities who may distrust and even have been victimised by police (Hall 2013, p. 126). As such, CSO data on hate crime is important to both identifying and addressing gaps in official data. The purpose of this project was to advance cross-community co-operation in the collection of data on hate crime in Ireland by civil society organisations. This has been achieved by bringing together the national civil society organisations currently engaged in collecting data on hate crime in this jurisdiction – the European Network Against Racism Ireland, Transgender Equality Network Ireland and Gay and Lesbian Equality Network Ireland to discuss the development and alignment of their monitoring systems.