Preventing the phenomenon of hate crime Principles of building partnerships with the local community

The Jewish Association Czulent, in cooperation with the Voivodeship Police Headquarters, is launching a series of workshops focused on preventing hate crime and building partnerships with local communities. The workshops are addressed to police officers, staff of the Kraków City Office, as well as activists from minority and migrant organizations.

Bias-motivated crimes cause fear, anger, and a sense of helplessness among those who experience them. Victims often struggle with long-term psychological and social consequences and may lose trust in the justice system. Members of communities at risk of hate crimes, fearing discrimination, change their daily habits—they avoid speaking their language in public, refrain from dressing in ways associated with their religion, and may try to conceal their skin color, for example by wearing long-sleeved clothing even in summer.
Bias-motivated crimes strike at personal identity, and the trauma associated with them is often much stronger than in the case of other types of crime. Therefore, a lack of response to such violence leads to an increased sense of insecurity and rising social tensions.

One of the most important measures for building an effective prevention system is so-called “community policing,” a policy based on cooperation with the local community (especially with the most at-risk groups) to prevent hate crimes. Therefore, the Jewish Association Czulent, in cooperation with the Voivodeship Police Headquarters in Kraków, has developed workshops aimed at networking and increasing knowledge about hate crimes among police officers, members of minority communities, and employees of the Kraków City Office.

For safety reasons, the training is intended for individuals who hold a COVID passport – the EU COVID-19 certificate.

The workshop is implemented within the project “Strategies for Cooperation and Inclusion of People Vulnerable to Discrimination and Exclusion,” with funding from the Active Citizens Program – National Fund, financed by the EEA Funds. The project is implemented by the Czulent Jewish Association in cooperation with the Municipality of Krakow, the Lesser Poland Voivodeship Police Headquarters and the American Jewish Committee Central Europe.