Police Must Scrap Non-Crime Hate Incidents, Watchdog Says
Non-crime hate incidents should be scrapped by the police and officers must “separate the offensive from the criminal”, the police inspectorate has said. The Times has more.
Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said police needed to “use common sense” and that people should be able to “speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law”.
He spoke before the publication of his organisation’s annual report on the state of policing in England and Wales.
Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are supposed to be reserved for cases “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” with a real risk of escalation “causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.
However, last year the Times revealed that police have investigated children, as well as doctors, vicars and social workers, over NCHIs. Cooke also criticised the handling of the arrest last week of Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted, who was detained by five armed officers over social media posts.
Cooke said lessons would be learnt and that it made “the policing job harder when these things occur”.
He said: “I’m a firm believer that non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and that intelligence can be gathered in a different way, which would cause less concern to the public and would make recording of such issues much easier for policing.
“I think we need to separate the offensive from the criminal. We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law.”
Worth reading in full.
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I thought the main requirement of being in the Police was to possess zero commonsense.
Allo Allo Allo, I’ve got no idea what’s ‘appenin ‘ere!
Oi represent the LAW, oi am NOT paid to FINK!
Statement of the bleeding obvious.
I’m no huge fan of the police, but this just isn’t a police problem, it is a law problem and an incentive problem. People need to understand incentives and put themselves in the police’s shoes. Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are supposed to be reserved for cases “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” with a real risk of escalation “causing significant harm or a criminal offence”. This sounds very logical and very sensible. But the reality is that the moment something goes wrong, people become hysterical and start shouting “why wasn’t something done”, “who is responsible”. If you are a policeman and you want to cover your arse, like everyone does, you don’t take any chances and err on the side of caution. If someone says something incendiary, you don’t ignore it and think “it’ll probably amount to nothing”. Because if then something does come of it, the mob is going to come for you, as it always does. And we all think it’s very easy and it’s all common sense. But they get things referred all the time, every day and eventually you decide you’re not going to let everything slide because eventually one of them will turn into an issue.… Read more »
Ah, but the activists know which buttons to push to get the desired reaction. That’s where the common sense is needed.
How many quangos will have to give their permission and will human rights judges agree.
You would have thought that spending police time investigating things that are not against the law is wasting police time, as well as breaking the law by definition 🙁
Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said police needed to “use common sense” and that people should be able to “speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law”.
Well it is against the law to speak openly- it has been since at least 1965
Well said. Most people – young’uns and older without functioning memories – think Blair 1997 was the start point, but no the groundwork was laid much earlier in 1965 by… a Labour Government.
Labour is very consistent when it comes to shut-up legislation, but they have the Tories as accomplices.
Race Relations Act for any newbies
The 1968 Race Relations Act – further to enlighten newbies – was to stop discrimination in the workplace.
Workers were alarmed that their jobs were being taken and their pay levels being eroded by cheap immigrant labour.
Since in those times closed shops operated and a worker needed to be a member of the appropriated union to get a job particularly in State-run industries, unions would not accept immigrants as members so as to protect British workers’ jobs.
This was counter to the interests of Government desperate to reduce the payroll expense in State-run industries, so they passed the Race Relations Act which had nothing to do with racism in society, since immigrants were less than 1% of population, and most people never saw one or had any interaction with them.
There was no race problem, just Government financial problem.
Thanks for that
Some would argue that wages are still being undermined to this day
“Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are supposed to be reserved for cases “clearly motivated by intentional hostility” with a real risk of escalation “causing significant harm or a criminal offence”.”
That doesn’t make sense. It’s double speak. Either the language used is a crime – intentional hostility – or it isn’t. If it is, then let a jury decide not some mindless plod who would rather go mob handed round somebody’s house who they know will be inoffensive and non-violent, than deal with actual villains or investigate the “hate crime” that spews daily out of the mouths of the adherents of the religion of peace against the Jews.
They are cowards – yellow hi-viz vests suit them.
Poor top management, poor supervision down the command chain inevitably results in poor selection of recruits unsuitable for the job, inadequate training.
NCHIs are an interesting attempt by the Establishment to introduce pre-crime in the areas of thought and speech. The idea is to get us to shut up while our society is destroyed, and our people race-replaced. For this reason I can’t see our beloved and utterly wonderful rulers given them up.
Not a chance. Once a law is passed, it’s there almost for good. Something pretty extraordinary has to happen for a law to be revoked.
In fact, I would say that one of the main factors that will lead to the collapse of our society and civilisation (it’s a matter of when not if) is the fact that it’s just too easy to create laws and regulations in our society.
We have created a machinery – a parliament and a bureaucracy – that really exist for this and almost no other purpose. And so if you create a machine to produce laws, that’s what the machine will do.
Our society is going to collapse – in fact I would say is already collapsing – under the weight of laws and regulations that make productive life ever more difficult. At some point the productive capacity of our society just won’t be enough and it will collapse.
Exactly. I don’t understand why people are surprised when people who have sought out power as a career then want to have more of it. It seems like laws are never just repealed- they are always replaced with laws that look quite similar to the ones they replace. All part of the pantomime.
With NCHI (low hanging fruit) + Police (low IQ, motivation, incentive), overseen by an ineffectual stupid hierarchy pushing idiotic political diktats, what could possibly go wrong?
Anyone else find that second from last paragraph slightly chilling?
the bit that I noticed was ‘are no longer required’ – so they were required before?
Pretty much any process that enables an alleged victim to allege offence is just providing a method for activists and nutters to make trouble and settle scores.
We don’t just need to get rid of NCHIs but also any law that elevates ‘hate’ over real world consequences. We have enough laws already to cover libel, slander, and incitement to violence. No need to add hurt feeling to the mix.
Incitement to violence- like the law used to imprison Connolly?
Yes. Although I don’t believe Connolly was well advised and should not have met the incitement to violence threshold.
Can you give an example of what would/should meet it?
Do you need anything else?
I guess that could work with an honest jury
I am just wary of well intentioned stuff because it gets abused
By definition and by law these are not crimes. So A: Why are they being investigated and logged as crimes? B: Why is he talking about continuing to “gather intelligence” on things that by definition and by law are not a crime?
It’s good to see that he thinks that being offensive is not a crime. But I would point out that he was the Chief Constable of Merseyside when a bunch of preening coppers stood in front of a lorry with a big billboard proclaiming the opposite, looking very proud of thenselves several years ago. That resulted in a lot of negative publicity, so perhaps he’s had time to reflect.