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This emerges from the latest report from the Ministry of the Interior. According to Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP), the Office for the Protection of the Constitution will continue to use all means against the “radical and extreme fringes of our society”.
Worldview as the main motive
According to the report, more hate crimes were recorded across Austria in 2022 than in 2021 (5,464). The clear-up rate was 68.3 percent in 2022 and thus significantly higher than the clear-up rate of the crime statistics (52.2 percent) for the past year. When it comes to motives, for the second time since 2021, Weltanschauung leads the reasons for crimes with 2,466 registrations.
Other frequently mentioned motives were national/ethnic origin with 1,968 registrations and religion in 630 cases. “In terms of ideology, violations of the prohibition law account for the most, namely half of all registered crimes,” the report also said.
A third of offenses under the Prohibition Act
Offenses against the prohibition law are also noticeable in the report as a whole. “Criminal offenses under the Prohibition Act show the greatest accumulation and make up a third of hate crimes with 1,969 offenses, followed by property offenses (1,422), offenses against life and limb (972) and against freedom (815)”, said a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior on request. In addition, out of a total of 6,779 motives for prejudice, 2,377 related to subsidiary criminal laws – “of which almost exclusively to the prohibition law”.
In 2021, property crimes still led the statistics, followed by violations of subsidiary criminal laws. On the other hand, crimes against sexual integrity and self-determination have fallen by almost 21 percent. In 2021, 141 offenses with 186 prejudice motives were recorded in this area; in 2022 the number was 112 offenses and 122 motives.
More common offenders
Compared to the total number of suspects in this year’s crime statistics hate crime-Suspects more often juvenile or under criminal responsibility. “They were also mostly male and less likely to have foreign citizenship than the total number of all suspects in 2022. These circumstances were particularly striking for anti-Semitic crimes,” says the report. On the other hand, the proportion of suspects with foreign citizenship in anti-Christian and anti-Muslim crimes and hate crimes against gender and sexual orientation increased. In addition, 42 percent of all suspects of prejudice-motivated crimes are under the age of 25, it said.
As in 2021, (semi-)public crime scenes dominated in the case of bodily harm and damage to property, less clearly in the case of crimes against liberty. Hate speech would have mostly taken place online, with a similar frequency for every second violation of the prohibition law. Online, the high proportion of anti-Semitic motives, ideological motives that do not fall under the Prohibition Act and criminal offenses against the Prohibition Act stand out. “This speaks for less direct contact between the suspects and these victim groups and is probably due to the anti-Semitic and racist ‘memes’ that were exchanged in social media or social media platforms via messenger services,” the reason given is given.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, criminal acts based on prejudice have been recorded electronically since November 2020. Due to the short recording period (2021 and 2022), a development trend cannot yet be interpreted, it was emphasized. “Only short-term deductions can be made,” said the spokesman. A further increase in reported crimes can be expected through measures to raise awareness. At the same time, this reduces the dark field. “A scientific study on dark field research is being prepared for the coming year,” said the spokesman.
Focus on prevention
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner referred to the key function of prevention in connection with the report. “As part of the current reform of the criminal investigation service and the protection of the constitution in the federal states, this is a priority. Prevention work with young people means that extremist tendencies can be identified early and countermeasures can be taken,” said Karner. “The radical and extreme fringes of our society are trying to undermine our democratic coexistence and thus endanger it.”
Minister of Justice Alma Zadic (Greens) took the same line. hate crimes are a serious threat to the cohesion of a democratic society. “Recently hate campaigns and calls for violence have shown us how real this threat is,” she is quoted as saying in a broadcast.
SPÖ calls for national action plan
The fact that, according to the BMI report, there were as many reports of crimes against LGBTIQ people in 2022 is “frightening enough,” said SPÖ spokesman Mario Lindner in a broadcast on Saturday. Crimes against the community in particular would be reported less frequently and would go unreported. He criticizes the fact that the Ministry of the Interior has not surveyed the number of unreported cases. Such a “dark field study” was already required by experts in the pilot report of the BMI in 2021, but has not yet been implemented.
In view of the report’s findings, the SPÖ reiterates its call for a national action plan against hatred and discrimination. Lindner also announced a “series of parliamentary initiatives” and a “series of parliamentary questions to all responsible members of the government”. Because “the days of working groups and round tables are definitely over.”
Source: Nachrichten
