Methodology: Part III | Facing Facts

Facilitator’s guide for National Workshops and change agent interviews

National workshops

Stakeholders from across the CSO and public authority sectors were identified and brought together to map current recording systems, the national picture of hate crime and to agree gaps and potential actions for improvement. While the workshops served as a data-gathering exercise about current practices and gaps, they also aimed to test out new ways to connect people working on hate crime recording who don’t usually work together on the topic.

The workshop methodology focused on activities and tools such as the ‘sticky wall’ that encourage different stakeholders to see and even experience things from each other’s point of view and to understand and agree what they might offer each other to improve available information about hate crime’s prevalence and impact and to better meet victims’ support and security needs.

We aimed to test out ways to bring together key agencies and organisations and provide a space to:

Co-describe how hate crimes are recorded and by whom
Co-diagnose current gaps in recording
Start to co-prioritise actions for improvement

Participants:

Took part in a reflection to encourage them to take on another perspective
Used case studies to explain how they would record a hate crime using their current methodology whether from a CSO or for example, police perspective
Shared and mapped existing information about hate crime prevalence and impact together, and openly discuss its reliability and validity from different perspectives
Identified possible next steps and actions that can be taken together, and
Gave feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the workshop methodology

When working to agree national recommendations, we drew on international resources such as capacity building activities offered by FRA and ODIHR.

The next section gives detailed guidance on how to carry out these activities. The guidance brings together what was learned from facilitating 12 workshops over two years. The Findings section draws out cross national themes and national reports look at the findings for the workshops in detail.

Change agent interviews

What do we mean by change agents? There are a few definitions of change agents, but in a nut shell, they can be described as a person or a group of people who cause a change in the way things are done or in the way ideas are viewed. In the case of hate crime recording they might be individuals who have played a significant role in supporting improvements in this area from the police, prosecution, court or NGO perspective. They may work in a public authority, CSO, educational role or they may have moved from one to another. They may have instituted a new monitoring system, convinced an institution to introduce hate crime training, or significantly contributed to raising awareness of the problem of hate crime and the need to address it over a period of time, sometimes years.

While the workshops are collective and group based, the purpose of the interviews with change agents was to explore their perspective on specific, complex or sensitive issues in more depth.

Lead partners identified key people – ‘change agents’ – who have been at the centre of efforts to understand and address hate crime at the national level. We wanted to find out what, in their opinion, supports – and what undermines – cooperation between public authorities and those civil society organisations that conduct recording and monitoring activities. We also wanted their perspective on the ‘story’ of hate crime in the country: what were the key events that shaped the national consciousness about hate crime? In terms of the specifics of improving the hate crime data picture, what needs to be done next?

The interviews took place during the same week as the workshops and at the convenience of the interviewee.

Project partners worked with the research lead to identify five people per country from a range of perspectives.

The following issues needed to be taken into account:

Filming: the interviews with change makers were filmed
Allow for full or partial anonymity where requested (e.g. country only, no name; keep only part not full interview anonymous, etc.)
Designed an interview guide that goes beyond the surface of barriers to recording hate crimes and/ or working with CSOs to the heart of the challenges and successes in their experience, presenting new and unlikely insights

Connecting on hate crime recording and data collection in Europe

Avoid the common focus on sharing ‘good practice’ and instead explore what works to support and sustain these particular change agents’ practice in their context and, from that perspective, to draw out common elements that may form the basis of national and European recommendations. Explore what skills and techniques work, including those of diplomacy. Explored what kind of model successful change agents work with in different institutional settings

The interview guide can be found at annex one of this report. Cross national themes emerging from the interviews are explained in the Findings section and nationally focused findings are presented in the nati0nal reports.

General guidelines for planning a workshop

Invite representatives from across government departments and agencies that have some responsibility in relation to hate crime recording, including police, prosecution service, courts, statistical authorities
Make sure that the CSOs you invite currently record hate incidents against one or more target groups based on a strong and transparent methodology such as direct reports from victims in person or online
In some contexts it will be a challenge to convince representatives from one or more public authorities to attend. They may not see hate crime as a priority, you may not have a relationship with the relevant contact, the topic of the workshop may be perceived to be too politically sensitive, etc. Try to counter these risks by working with others that do have relationships with your target group to provide the necessary arguments, information and support to convince them to attend
Practical considerations: need interpreting facilities and ideally, space for small group work (either big room or smaller break out rooms); refreshments, etc

Activity one: taking ‘the other’ perspective: what does hate crime mean to me?

Rationale:

The purpose of this exercise is to take on different perspectives when thinking about what hate crime means, its impact and its significance. It aims to connect the participants in different ways and mix up the ‘hierarchies’ from the beginning.

Requirements:

About ten pieces of A4 paper

Directions:

Before the workshop

Take several pieces of A4 paper. Using one piece of paper for each of the following roles, write:

‘victim’
‘police officer’
Civil Society organisation (CSO)
‘Policy maker’ (Ministry of Justice/Ministry of Interior)
‘Prosecutor’
‘Judge’
‘Statistician’
Etc

Write the role in English and the national language where relevant.

Look at the participants list and make a note of which role you should give each participant. For example, there might be someone or a particular role that would benefit from considering a particular perspective. Make sure you give a participant a role that they do not currently have.

During the workshop

Introduce the activity and tell participants:

You have been given a ‘role’ that is different from what you do every day or we think is different than your experience. Spend a few minutes thinking about what hate crime means to you from this perspective and share your thoughts with your group. What is important and what is significant? What do you need?[1]

For example, if you have been given the role of a ‘victim’ what does hate crime mean to you? What is significant to you and what do you need?

Similarly, if you are a policy maker in the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Interior for example, what does hate crime mean to you? What is significant and what do you need to know about it?

If you are a police officer, what does hate crime mean to you? What is significant about it and what does it mean? What do you need to do your job?

Count off the participants into groups of no more than 5 people. Ask them to find a space where they can speak in a group

Discussion questions/ wrapping up

Bring participants back to the large group and ask them to share one or two key points that struck them during this exercise. Capture any important points that come up on flip chart pages throughout the room

Activity two: the ‘journey’ of a hate crime case

Rationale

The purpose of this exercise is to map the journey of a case from the perspective of the victim experience. By the end of the exercise, participants will think through what information is and should be captured to help ensure safety and justice and the role of police, prosecutor, policy maker and CSO information in achieving this.

Requirements

‘sticky wall’[2]
Black markers
Coloured index cards (at least 20 cards of various bright colours)
White tack
Print-out of case study document
Journey of a Hate Crime Case graphic

Directions:

Before the workshop

Carefully review the participants list and create groups based on mixed roles and perspectives. Also consider whether you want to bring together particular individuals, for example where there might be a possibility to generate agreement and progress between them.

Take cards and write:

‘Victim’, or draw a stick figure of a person
‘Investigation’
‘Prosecution’
‘Sentencing’
Questions
Or draw an exclamation mark !

Arrive at the workshop room early, put up the sticky wall in a place that will allow participants enough space to stand in front of and move around the sticky wall.

Now,

Place the cards ‘investigation’, ‘prosecution’, ‘sentencing’ along the top of the wall.
Place the ‘victim’ anywhere on the wall
Put the cards for questions and problems at the bottom of the wall.
Take the extra cards and markers and put them on the participants’ table. Be generous.

During the workshop

Divide participants into the pre-arranged groups and give out the handouts.
Explain that participants are going to put everything they know about how hate crime is recorded across the investigation, prosecution and sentencing process on the wall by writing information on the cards and sticking them on the wall. Explain that each person has information to add to the wall whether they are a police officer, judge, CSO representative, prosecutor, ministry representative or other person. Move the victim along the three stages to show that the group is aiming to build a picture of information about what is captured about the victim experience. Explain that questions and problems should be written down and placed at the bottom of the map.
Give participants 30-45 minutes to work in their small groups agree and write the information they want to share. Ask them to post their papers on the wall.
Give participants time to tour the wall and look at others’ contributions. You could do this during the coffee break.
Bring the participants back into the larger group to share and discuss their work.

Points for discussion

Highlight the following points in the discussion:

CSOs are in the most likely position to be at the victim’s side at each stage and/or throughout the process (they monitor the process but they can’t be responsible for quantitative data).
There is great potential for information to fall through the cracks between investigation – prosecution – courts stages – policy stages
The experience of victims can be confusion, re-victimisation, drop out and increased risk
Explain why this is important – without this information we do not know if victims have access to safety and justice.

Now share the A3 copies of the Journey of Hate Crime. Give participants a few minutes to study the graphic. In either small groups or in a plenary format ask participants to reflect on the following questions: does the graphic align with the information that they identified already? What is missing? What is new? Encourage participants to write or draw on the graphic to add national information or to convey the victim experience based on the information they have.

Handout to give to participants:

Background information:

The case involves a man of African descent who is a victim of a racist assault on the streets of a major city. The assault was carried out by two men and racist slurs and the phrase ‘go back to your country’ were used during the assault. The police are called by a witness and take a statement from the victim and other witnesses. It is confirmed that this incident is a racist assault.

In your group, try to answer the following questions:

What information do the police capture about this case? Since it is clearly a racist incident, how is this information captured and shared? How does the incident become included in hate crime statistics?