Police Competences’ in Preventing, Investigating and Combating Hate Crimes in Poland — Part I

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The article is divided into two main parts. It refers to selected data on hate crimes recorded in Poland and Police effectiveness regarding preventing, investigating and combating such kinds of crimes. Based on available sources there is no problem with extremist activity in a large-scale in Poland nowadays, but for sure there is an urgent one with the increasing number of hatemotivated incidents, both with its social impact. Awareness-raising and educational campaigns that aim at promoting respect for human rights and tolerance for diversity are much needed in this matter. Also, law enforcement agencies, including Police, play a key role while tackling racism and bias. An uncontrolled and unpunished manifestation of hate, both with the lack of an appropriate and unequivocal state response to such incidents, also quiet, social approval to hate-motivated behaviours, seem to be the main components of extreme movements growing. Thus, the main aim of the article was to describe the phenomenon of hate-motivated incidents that were reported in Poland within the past years and to diagnose Polish police officers’ skills, knowledge and qualification in this field, both qualitative analyses of accessible training programmes. Selected terms (racism, discrimination, intolerance, xenophobia and hate speech) and symbols (the Celtic Cross, the SS-Totenkopf and the Triskele) that promote hate were defined (part 1) both with Police officers’ identification accuracy. Research results presented in this article were gathered by using a variety of methods and techniques, both theoretical and empirical (part 2). The data that refers to Police competence in the context of preventing, investigating and combating hate crimes was mainly collected as a part of a doctoral research conducted by the author in 2012–2014.