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Blog post 4.

Todays lecture was about the keyfindings from a research on the LGBT community. This research was done from a sociological perspective. This lecture really stressed the importance of being able to look at societal tensions from a sociological angle. Problems can not be understood without taking societal structures into account. More narrative analyses are needed in order to understand how meaning is given in society. In the Netherlands sociology is a mandatory course in the police academy (in the applied science study). I’m curious if this is also the case for other countries.

First, he explained about the relation between LGBT rights and the understanding of citizenship. Understanding the notion of citizenship is important, as it is very fragile for people in the lGBT community, because of the (perceived) homophobia in Norway. This was a really interesting highlight, but there are still a lot of unclearities for when it comes to the relation between the citizenship from a juridicial perspective and from a cultural perspective.

Secondly, he explained how LGBT people position themselves. His informants explained that they adjust their behavior to reduce the risks of being assaulted. I reckon that this is so they don’t face the consequences of breaking the hetero norm. What i’m curious about is whether or in what way other marginalized groups deal with this coping strategy.

Thirdly, we talked about procedural justice. The relevance can’t be emphasized enough. If victims are treated fairly and professionaly, they tend to care less when the charges are dropped. Often times charges are dropped because it is very hard to prosecute hate crimes. It is important for the police to understand that reporting a hate crime is part of identity politics. It is not just an individual, but it symbolizes an assault on the whole community. This is the collective dimension that should be recognized by any police officer. In the lecture later that day, it was added that another reason for harsher punishment, is that hate crimes are based on categories that are biological determent. This means that the categories that are used in hate crimes, can’t be escaped. And therefore hate crimes are even more injust.

Finally, we discussed racialized stories of homophobic hate crimes. This mechanism is necessary to understand and acknowledge contemporary society. This is the place where two minority/marginalized groups intertwine. A certain group is given an attribution by ‘us’. In this case it is the ‘backward’ other, being an ethnic (assuming a muslim) minority vs ‘us’ white ‘neutral/ unmarked’ Norwegians. I can’t stress enough that we need to see the asymmetrical relations between the powerfull majority vs a marginalized minority that is being framed as not well integrated. This kind of symbolizes the tensions we see in a lot of European countries, with populist parties legitimizing their ideas on the inevitable clash of civilization, and their ideas of an hostile and inhuman policy towards ethnic minorities and refugees.

This lecture gave a lot to think about. Although the time was way too short for something as big, difficult and important as these hightlights.

Blog post 3.

This morning we had the opportunity and pleasure to hear and see a presentation about the community of deaf people and about hate crimes related to them. The presentation was great and we were able to find a lot of interesting and unknown things. We had the opportunity to talk a little more about the language used by deaf people, what people do with them, how they deal with their problems and many other things that we do not hear every day.

The presentation really made us think more about the situations and crimes the deaf people may face. Is the motivation hate or just the belief that a disabled person might be an easier target? How difficult is it to explain to a police officer who does not understand sign language what has happened? Does this effect on the willingness to report about a crime? Are there any digital or virtual possibilities at the police stations or patrol cars already in use, that would help deaf people to communicate with those who don’t understand sign languages?

Anica, Kosovo: ”While working at my job, I had a lot of opportunities to meet deaf people and I can tell you that it is really difficult to work with them, whatever it is and what kind of crimes it is. Because mostly deaf people are accompanied by some other disorders and then it will be really difficult for us to start communicating with them, to find out what it is about. Especially in my place when we don’t have an expert who can talk to them. That is why we invest all our strength to understand them and to help them, especially when they are victims in the case.”

Blog post 2.

Over the last few days, we were placed into teams with people from our own country and asked to make a presentation about the policing education in our university and countries, and we then shared them on padlet so that we could watch them and understand our similarities and differences. The best part about this was the broad range of nationalities that took part, including countries from northern Europe, eastern Europe and the UK, as it meant the information, we learnt was very thorough.

One of the differences which stood out was that the Romanian system is very closely connected to the military, whereas in the UK the police force is not associated with the military at all. This also seems to be the case in other countries such as Germany and Romania where the police forces routinely carry weapons while on patrol.

Along with those presentations, much of our work has been done in international teams, with Musk Ox team comprising of six people from six different nationalities; Finland, the Netherlands, Kosovo, Ukraine, Romania, and the United Kingdom. I feel this has benefited each member of the team because it may have been the first time we have spoken to people from these countries. Our team have worked well to complete the tasks effectively and our different cultural backgrounds has helped to greatly further our knowledge.

Overall, it has been a very productive first week and we are all looking forward to learn more about hate crime both within our own country and in other countries too.

Blog post 1.

This morning we had a general lecture on hate crimes. It started off with overview of the organization. The organization structure was more of less alike. Some ‘minor’ differences, but not noteworthy. 

Some differences between Norway in comparison to Romania, Netherlands en Finland was that they had a way more structurized manner to see if there has been a hate crime with the boxes to tick. Also the way the Norwegian police does their registration is way better to get statistics concerning hate crimes. This makes it easier for the government and police to make policies and legislation. Furthermore, Norway has a hate crime unit. Although Romania is trying to create this unit as well it’s has not been realized yet. 

Another difference between the Norwegian Police is the way they handle the care of victims. In Norway this is part of the police tasks. In Romania, Finland and the Netherlands it is outsourced. The police mostly advice and direct victims to this NGO that takes care of victims. 

The hate crime legislation from Norway is kind of similar to Finland. The motivation is most important. In Romia there were more categories included. Another difference is that Romania, Finland and the Netherlands are part of the EU, this might makes a difference in legislation. 

The last part of the class consisted of answering different questions. We had the feeling that the other groups had more analytical questions, wherease we had more straight forward questions.

The worldwide response to the fight against racism during the last couple of years has been heartening. Therefore, echoing these sentiments and reflecting the diversity through popular hits leads to a better understanding of this phenomenon in the society.

Below are two songs we chose from our hate crime related playlist:

Where Is The Love? – Black Eyed Peas

Released in the early 2000s, this song was a response to the hate and fear generated after the 9/11 attacks. Urging people to love one another, and questioning why so much hate exists in the world, this song remains relevant more than one decade later, a pertinent reminder that we should extend love to people of all races and religions.

Same Love – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Macklemore targets acceptance and understanding of the LGBTQ community with this song about equality, but he also points out the division that is caused by fear of the “lesser,” or “other.” He reminds us that we need to fight for equality for everyone, and combat the hatred toward all minority groups. Human rights apply to everybody, no exceptions.