Towards a Complete Coverage of Reported Bias Crimes?– Findings and Short-comings of the New Judicial Statistics on Hate Crime

Abstract

Bias crime refers to crimes against people based on their social identity and threatens the foundations of a liberal and democratic society. The police and judiciary are called upon not only to recognize and combat bias crime, but also to comprehensively record it statistically as part of an evidence-based crime policy. Since 2001, these crimes have been recorded in the Criminal Police Reporting Service – Politically Motivated Crime (KPMD-PMK). New judicial statistics were recently published for 2019 and 2020, providing detailed insights into the judicial recording and treatment of bias crime. However, this is not a continuation of the KPMD-PMK at judicial level, but has its own criteria, making it difficult to compare data and raising the question of plausibility. The article provides an overview of the current statistical findings, critically reflects on the existing recording criteria and points out possibilities for improvement.