Will the police finally see sense on ‘non-crime hate incidents’?

Sex offences, violence and fraud have spiked, according to the latest crime figures. Meanwhile, the number of convictions remains staggeringly low: in England and Wales, more than 99 per cent of rapes reported to police do not end in a conviction. In short, there’s plenty for the police to get on with. Yet worryingly, officers are sometimes kept busy investigating legitimate debate. Finally, though, there are signs that police chiefs are seeing sense.

The College of Policing, the national standards body for police, has said that officers need to focus on cutting crime, take a common sense approach and ‘not get involved in debates on Twitter’. Police have been told to avoid recording trivial incidents and reduce the number of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHI). In short, this means anything said or done by anyone which the victim (or anyone else) saw as being motivated by hostility or prejudice based on race or a protected characteristic, even if it didn’t amount to a crime.