New prejudice motivated crime reporting resources

Victoria Police has launched new resources to help members of our diverse community understand how to report prejudice motivated crime (PMC).

PMC is any crime motivated by prejudice or hatred towards a person or a group because of a characteristic such as race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. These crimes can include harassment, threats to kill, verbal abuse, destroying or damaging property, and in more serious cases, physical violence. These crimes not only impact the victim’s sense of safety, but also the broader community.

The new resources, available for download from the Victoria Police website, are an animated video and poster. The resources are available in English, Arabic, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Hindi, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Somali, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Through our Tackling Hate project, we champion the collection of data around hate or prejudice motivated incidents and are working to standardise the coding and classification of these incidents. This will help to analyse patterns in the data, ultimately providing more support for victims of hate.

Prejudice motivated crimes should be reported to the Victoria Police, and prejudice motivated incidents to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC). You can make a complaint to the VEOHRC and they will get in touch to help resolve your complaint through a process of conciliation. Conciliation tries to bring both sides together to find an outcome they can agree on. Alternatively, you can use their Community Reporting Tool to let them know what you’ve experienced. The Community Reporting Tool can be used anonymously.

Most importantly we urge our fellow Victorians to report any incidents of hate, bias or prejudice that they experience or witness, and to pass this message on widely.

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