The police and the Roma community in Hungary

摘要

Hungary is a typical case of police reform within the context of political transition. For forty years, the police in Hungary had been a force serving the regime (rather than a service dedicated to citizen satisfaction). In the post-communist era, the Hungarian Police Force has been facing the task of restoring mutual trust with the population. A particularly urgent dimension of this task continues to be its relationship with ethnic minorities -especially the Roma community, who remain the target of discrimination by public authorities and violence by some extremist groups. The Hungarian government, with the assistance of various partners such as the Helsinki Committee, the Open Society Institute and the European Commission, has undertaken several programs to address such problems. These include the STEPS S project to assess and reduce the number of discriminatory ID checks by the police; several managerial, recruitment and training efforts to improve the attitude of police officers towards the Roma; and - perhaps the most significant - the creation of a Community-Police Board in the Nograd County to establish a communication channel between the Police Force and local community (especially Roma) leaders. Overall, the paper argues that many interesting projects have been implemented in Hungary over the last 20 years and undeniable progress has been made. However, racist attacks, discriminatory practices against the Roma community within the police and under-policing of hate crimes remain serious long-term challenges.