In recent years, Danish police have seen an increase in reported hate crimes.
When defining a hate crime, the Danish police divide the definition into 3 categories based on the crime’s motive; motivated by sexual orientation, religiously motivated, and racially motivated. Racially motivated hate crimes include, among other things, motives involving nationality, ethnicity, race, and skin color. In the period between 2015-2018, the number of hate crimes reported to the police and with a racial motive, increased by over 100 percent. (from 104 cases in 2015 to 260 cases in 2018). Individually, the increase in reports may indicate that more people feel confident in reporting hate crimes in Denmark. However, further research paints another picture.
If we compare the figures from the 2018 police reports with figures from the Ministry of Justice’s January 2020 Victim Survey, a different picture is created, one indicating huge numbers of hate crimes which are not registered by the police as “racially motivated”. The difference in figures are known as the “dark figures” . The Victim Survey shows that 8 percent of respondents, between the age of respondents, between the age of 16-74 years, believe that the violence they were subjected to, had a racist motive. According to the study, this corresponds to somewhere between 4,000 and 5,400 people per year being subjected to a racially motivated hate crime. This leaves between 3,740 and 5,140 per year cases of racially motivated violence not being registered as a hate crime, even though the victim is absolutely certain that the violence was racially motivated.
There can be many reasons for the large difference between the number of reported hate crimes with a racist motive and the number of people who believe that they were exposed to racist-motivated violence. This may be due to a lack of evidence of the racist motive. It can also be perceived by the victim as racially motivated without this having been the case.
At the same time, however, the figures paint a picture of too many cases not being registered as hate crimes by the Danish police. This is despite the fact that both the National Police, the Ministry of Justice and the Danish human rights organization have repeatedly pointed out that there is a need to strengthen the police’s efforts to register hate crimes, as well as to increase citizens’ propensity to report.
The propensity to report among minorities is generally very low. This is partly due to the fact that it can often be difficult to prove the racist motive and that the police’s duty to investigate the hate crime portion of the crime only takes effect when evidence of the racist motive has been submitted. As a result, some cases are not investigated, which gives the victim an experience of not being heard, this experience is spread among friends and family and forms a perception that there is no point in reporting hate crimes.
The dark figures show the importance of correctly registering hate crimes. They also show that the problem of racism in Denmark is far greater than what the public assumes, and politicians will admit.
How many racially motivated hate crimes are needed for Denmark to recognize that there is a problem and a need to actively do something about it.
Other organs have already recognized the issue. In the next article we will look at what has been said, done, and what could be done to address this issue.
https://politi.dk/statistik/hadforbrydelser
https://dkr.dk/materialer/vold-og-voldtaegt/offerundersoegelser-2005-2018/
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