Organisation

The Portuguese Association for Victim Support (Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima) promoted the project with the Criminal Police (Polícia Judiciária), the Prosecutor General’s Office (Procurador-Geral da República) and the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (Comissão para a Cidadania e a Igualdade de Género).

International partners: Victim Support Austria (Austria), Solidarcy (Italy), Victim Support Malta (Malta), Spanish Confederation of Police (Spain), Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority (Sweden), Faith Matters (United Kingdom) and Victim Support Europe.

Start and end date

Start date:

3 October 2016.

End date:

October 2018.

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

• Victim support services.
• Law enforcement and judicial practitioners, in particular prosecutors and inspectors from the Criminal Police.

Funding

Co-financed by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme.

Objectives

• Create tools that can help to raise awareness and multidisciplinary training materials to combat hate crimes and hate speech that include victims’ perspectives.
• Raise awareness and recognition of practices against hate crime.
• Stimulate reflection and debate on the legal framework for hate crimes and hate speech and provide specialised knowledge and training on the special needs of hate crime and hate speech victims to the organisations involved.

Outputs

• Training handbook including concrete and tailored recommendations for victim support officers, police officers and legal professionals.
• Conference – ‘HATE NO MORE – Support to victims of hate crimes’, which took place in Lisbon on 26 September 2018 and marked the closure of the project.
• Three training sessions held by the Criminal Police. These were developed and delivered internally in the last quarter of 2018 under the theme ‘Hate crimes: strengthening the responses of the justice system and victim support services’.

Description

The main objectives of the project were to raise awareness of hate crimes and hate speech through the creation of multidisciplinary training material for professionals that includes victims’ perspectives. The project also aimed to raise awareness of hate crime among the general public and potential victims. It was hoped that this would contribute to an increase in the number of hate crimes being reported and victims accessing support services.

To be able to meet the main objectives, several activities were developed. These included research and the collection of information on training on all forms of hate crime and hate speech for victim support, law enforcement and judicial practitioners; and the creation of a handbook with procedures on how to identify victims of hate crime and hate speech and how to communicate and interact with hate crime victims according to their needs and specific impacts of the crime in a respectful manner. In addition, a training manual was produced for professionals who deal with hate crime and hate speech victims, and training sessions on hate crimes and hate speech in each partner country (Austria, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) were developed. These sessions were aimed at professionals who come into contact with victims. Meetings to raise awareness aimed at professionals who work in the risk sectors and the development of a campaign aimed at vulnerable groups and raising awareness of the general public were also planned.

Critical success factors

• The production of a training handbook for professionals who come into contact with hate crime and hate speech victims. Distributing it in several languages (English, German, Italian and Portuguese) was a crucial factor that allowed its use by various international actors. The handbook was disseminated nationwide.
• Conducting research on national and international legal frameworks on hate crimes and hate speech, and gathering information on the special needs of actual or potential hate crime and hate speech victims.
• Development of training sessions on hate crime and hate speech in each partner country, which were aimed at criminal justice system professionals and victim support workers. A number of inspectors in the Criminal Police have undergone specific training in dealing with hate crimes. In the last trimester of 2018, in the context of the Hate No More project, the Criminal Police implemented a training initiative internally. The course ‘Hate crimes: strengthening the responses of the justice system and victim support services’ took place in Oporto, Lisbon and Faro, and inspectors from the respective directorates and departments participated. This training will continue to be replicated to provide officers in the Criminal Police with the necessary tools to deal with potential hate crime situations or other types of discriminatory violence.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

The Portuguese Association for Victim Support promoted these actions in partnership with national entities – the Criminal Police, the Public Prosecution Office and the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (Portugal) – and international organisations, such as Victim Support Austria (Austria), Solidarci (Italy), Victim Support Malta (Malta), Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority (Sweden), Faith Matters (the United Kingdom) and Victim Support Europe.

Monitoring and evaluation

The General Prosecutor’s Office monitored the project’s impact on the work of prosecutors.

Publicly available contact details

Portuguese Association for Victim Support
Telephone: +351 21 358 79 00
Email: apav.sede@apav.pt
Website