Judicial view of hate crime on social media in Poland

• In Event: Hate crimes

Abstract

This presentation will share the results of research (not yet completed at the time of submitting the abstract) into court case files of crimes classified as hate crimes in Poland between 2021 and 2023. The focus will be on comparing acts committed using social media with those carried out offline. The research primarily includes quantitative data, with some qualitative references. It compares the socio-demographic characteristics of perpetrators and victims, the specific characteristics targeted by perpetrators, and the forms of the perpetrators' actions. It also compares the sentences imposed and their justifications.

In Polish criminal law, hate crimes are most commonly defined in three articles of the Criminal Code. These provisions penalize behaviors such as violence, unlawful threats, incitement to hatred, and insults based on specific characteristics of the victim, as well as promoting totalitarian systems. The legal framework is limited to a closed list of characteristics: nationality, ethnicity, race, religion or irreligiousness, and (sometimes) political beliefs. As a result, many behaviors do not fall within the scope of these crimes in Poland.

On the other hand, hate crime, regardless of the law in a given country, is characterized by a significant number of acts that are not reported to law enforcement agencies, for reasons such as fear, lack of faith in the actions of law enforcement, or doubts about the detection of the perpetrator. Thus, the judicial view of hate crime in Poland will not be able to capture the full range of acts motivated by hatred in the criminological sense, but it will provide objective data regarding the subset covered by the provisions of the Criminal Code.

Author

• Krzysztof Worek, University of Warsaw