The “Hate Crime” 2022 situation report was published on July 22, 2023. A third of the ads are based on violations of the prohibition law.
In 2022, 5,865 criminal acts were reported, in 2021 there were 5,464 criminal acts. Multiple motives can be identified for a crime. A total of 6,779 motifs were recorded in 2022, and 6,619 in 2021. In absolute terms, prejudice-motivated crimes were recorded most in Vienna, Lower Austria and Upper Austria. The clear-up rate for hate crimes is 68.3 percent, which is above the clear-up rate for police crime statistics.
In 2022, nine prejudice motives were recorded in the following order of frequency, comparing the data for 2021 in brackets: belief 2,466 (2,052), national/ethnic origin 1,968 (1,874), religion 630 (750), skin color 373 (408), sexual orientation 373 (376), gender 350 (354), age 241 (266), disability 183 (252) and social status 166 (287).
frequency of motives
The motive “national/ethnic origin” dominated in hate crimes against life and limb, freedom, honor and public peace. In contrast, the most frequently documented prejudice motive “worldview” prevailed in property damage and violations of the prohibition law.
The suspects
The suspects recorded in hate crimes were more often young people, male and with Austrian citizenship. This fact was particularly noticeable in the case of antisemitic crimes. On the other hand, the proportion of foreign suspects in anti-Christian and anti-Muslim crimes and in hate crimes against gender and sexual orientation was higher. Prejudice-related crimes are committed more often by criminals under criminal responsibility and minors between the ages of 14 and 18 than in the total crime rate. 42 percent of all suspects of prejudice-motivated crimes are younger than 25 years.
crime scenes
As in 2021, public crime scenes dominated in the case of prejudice-motivated bodily harm and damage to property, less so in the case of crimes against liberty. Incitement to hatred mainly took place online, with every second violation of the Prohibition Act taking place online with a similar frequency.
Online, the high proportions of antisemitic motives (90 prejudice motives, 40 percent), ideological motives (409 prejudice motives, 39 percent), which are directed against democratic and constitutional values and do not fall under the Prohibition Act, as well as crimes against the Prohibition Act (264 prejudice motives, 31 percent) and because of skin color (115 prejudice motives, 29 percent) stand out. This suggests fewer direct contacts between the suspects and these victim groups and is probably due to the anti-Semitic and racist “memes” that were exchanged on social media or via messenger services.
