UK police leaders to call for ‘non-crime hate incidents’ to be scrapped | Police
The category of non-criminal hate incidents is no longer fit for purpose and could be scrapped as part of plans to be submitted to the home secretary.
A review by police leaders will call for non-criminal hate incidents to be replaced with a new “common sense” system. Telegram reports. Under the new regulations, only the most serious incidents will be recorded as antisocial behaviour.
Non-criminal hate incidents are incidents that are perceived to result from hostility or prejudice towards people because of certain characteristics, such as race or gender, but do not meet the threshold for a crime.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing will publish their reviews next month, which will then be given to home secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The review was announced after the Metropolitan Police said in October it would no longer investigate non-criminal hate incidents.
It also comes after Father Ted creator Graham Linehan discovered he would face no further action over social media posts he made about transgender issues after he was arrested at Heathrow airport in September. It is understood Linehan was arrested for a possible criminal offence, but the case was later turned into a non-criminal hate incident investigation.
Nick Herbert, head of the College of Police Services, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The home secretary has already stated that he wants to make sure the police focus on the right things and not the unimportant things.
“It was pretty clear that the whole regime needed scrutiny and there was a sense that the police were being dragged into issues that they shouldn’t have been involved in. I don’t think the police force wants to be drawn into these things. They don’t want to police tweets.”
It has been reported that instead of recording hate incidents in a crime database, the plan would be to treat them as intelligence reports and give officers a “common sense” checklist.
Earlier this year, Andy Cooke, who leads HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, said: “I firmly believe that non-criminal hate incidents are no longer necessary and that intelligence can be collected in a different way, which will cause less public concern and make such matters much easier for the police to record.”
NPCC deputy chair Rachel Swann said: “We continue to work with the College of Policing to complete our review of non-crime hate incidents before it is presented to ministers at the beginning of the new year.
“It is not the job of policing to arbitrate online debates about cultural issues. Protecting free expression and ensuring officers focus on real-world threats and risks is an important part of our assessments. But equally important is ensuring policing can continue to keep our communities safe by identifying risks to vulnerable people, monitoring community tensions or identifying potential precursors to violence and other criminal behaviour.”
“Our review will make recommendations on how policing can best do this in the future and it will be up to ministers to decide future policy.”
