communicate and co-operate with them. Courses offered at police academies and subsequent in-service training courses should include themes such as community policing, human rights (including non-discrimination legislation) and inter-cultural communication. Where relevant, effective communication with minorities requires the recruitment of persons belonging to minority communities or of interpreters who speak a language they understand, and preferably their language. Protocols and methods to engage with minority communities need to be established as well, such as the use of leaflets, broadcasts in the media and posts on social media to communicate information in a language they understand and preferably in minority languages. Other forms of engagement with minority communities involve personal contact and dialogue, such as: ad hoc public meetings with law-enforcement officials, regular community forums to discuss policing in the community, workshops on specific topics related to community safety and the appointment of liaison officers to national minorities. Law-enforcement agencies can derive an important benefit from developing a relationship of trust with minority communities in the form of information and evidence obtained from individuals in these communities. Encouraging minorities to report crimes motivated by ethnic hatred, and following up on these complaints, signals to minority communities that justice is accessible. Persons belonging to national minorities are more likely to come forward and report crimes, with information and evidence for law-enforcement bodies a by-product, if they know that their complaints will be handled professionally, vigorously and with due diligence.44 Crime prevention strategies (such as community safety programmes), where lawenforcement bodies and communities work together to make their neighbourhoods safer and free of crime, is another way to encourage minority communities to cooperate with law-enforcement agencies. Such strategies should be underpinned by an understanding of the underlying causes for the commission of crimes, and hate crimes in particular, against persons belonging to national minorities. How police and other security services conduct their operations and investigations has a very significant impact on the way in which they are perceived by national minorities. In addition to prioritizing the investigation of hate crimes and pursuing all cases involving minority victims diligently and impartially, law-enforcement agencies should factor a number of considerations into their operational planning, such as deploying a number of officers appropriate for the task at hand (including officers from minority backgrounds in mixed teams that include women) and taking care 44 See for instance OSCE (2003) Decision No. 566 Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area, paragraphs 26 to 31. The Graz Recommendations on Access to Justice and National Minorities 29