Police Scotland include sex shop in list of locations where you can report a hate crime

Maybe the thinking is that gay men and sex workers visit these shops. They might be subject to hate crimes based on homophobia - or sex workers might get called ‘whores’ and ‘prossies’ which is deemed insulting as it’s now ‘sex work’ and sex work is work. Can’t quite see the reasoning for a mushroom farm. A hairdressers might be good place for women to report a hate crime/domestic abuse but… oh yeah misogyny and hate crimes based on being female aren’t included in the Hate crime bill are they?? I’m sorry if I’ve misunderstood.

We must be he exception here in South Ayrshire. We have a new Police station! Well it is building where the coppers congregate, it has a lovely new gym. Muslim washing room and LGBT+ friendly staff room. The only thing missing from this Police station is a cell. The didn't think having a room to lock dangerous criminals in was appropriate !

https://twitter.com/ScotsPolFed/status/1768206729550901534

'SNP ministers have been warned that people could be wrongly charged under <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/m9JiT/www.scotsman.com/news/politics/hate-crime-act-scotland-concerns-raised-as-controversial-new-laws-due-to-come-into-force-4551185" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">new hate crime legislation because officers are “unprepared” to enforce the legislation.'

'David Kennedy, the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF), told The Scotsman the online training packages that officers had undertaken were “just not going to be good enough”.
He said: “In years gone by, there had been a proper training course. You don’t get that from an online training exercise. We have stated previously that the online training is not fit for purpose.”
Mr Kennedy added: “Police are going to be inundated with people wanting to <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/m9JiT/www.scotsman.com/news/politics/hate-crime-law-glasgow-lgbt-sex-shop-designated-official-reporting-centre-for-controversial-new-laws-4553231" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">report a hate crime. We need to make sure the public understand the Act. It certainly won’t be an easy Act to understand.”
Mr Kennedy warned “the police are overstretched as it is”. He added: “People will expect certain actions to take place into the policing of the hate crime laws.”'

Pay: National Minimum Wage (if you’re lucky)

Job application for mushroom farm worker:

Essential experience and skills
Good command of English
Good hand-eye coordination
Ability to work as part of a team and independently
Previous experience of crisis management
Previous experience of harvesting and packing fresh fruit or vegetables, preferably mushrooms
Proven ability to record traumatic reports accurately in writing (this will be checked as part of the interview process)
Good health and safety awareness in relation to fruit or vegetable harvesting by hand
Previous experience of trauma counselling in person and by telephone
Excellent understanding of confidentiality
Accurate, up-to-date understanding of Scottish law as it applies to hate crimes and a willingness to undertake training to accommodate any future changes in the law.

Desirable experience and qualifications
Basic food hygiene certificate
Recent electric and pedestrian pallet truck training
Training in identifying diseases and pests in mushrooms
A postgraduate qualification in law, counselling, psychology or similar
A sympathetic personality
Own transport (public transport is limited)

There are enough videos of how to do it on TikTok 😜

I could - but then my lack of lipstick and blouses might raise suspicions.

Why not just identify as a trans woman? That isn't defined either

I quoted from the Herald article. It sounds as if there’s a lot of confusion around this. I wonder why…

Oh dear.what a pity.

Police federation said this morning they are not happy with this

police Scotland get only 2 hours online training on the law for this

and they don’t have enough officers to deal with this

I can imagine there are lawyers on both sides who are rubbing their hands at the thought of what’s ahead for them £££

From now on I am identifying as a GC non binary person.

(1)A person commits an offence if—

(a)the person—

(i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or

Every single transactivist in the country will be reporting everything that women say. India Willoughby will be setting up camp outside the mushroom farm/sex shop with a list as long as your arm about J. K. Rowling.

And of course they're all going to say they're insulted. Their entire schtick from one end to the other relies on the denial of reality. Anything short of 100% compliance is not acceptable.

Every single outlet will be inundated.

Which would appear to be the entire purpose of the scheme.

Within those parameters, I can't see how J. K. Rowling won't be arrested.

When you redefine the meaning of all words, including hate, that's what you'll get.

It also makes sense of India Willoughby claiming they had received so much 'hate' on the back of J. K. Rowling's tweets. Without showing any, of course.

Willoughby is being briefed by TRAs much cleverer than Willoughby, ahead of the law.

It's going to be a full-time job for transactactivist to set up anonymous accounts to 'hate' on their mates, in order to prove their mates' bogus assertions.

This depth of lunacy almost makes me look forward to the headlines.

Jane in Glasgow. On radio Scotland. 👏👏👏👏

she just said that the only protected charesticst not included in the law is sex
and she did not believe that Scottish Government will bring in a law to protect women

and she also said the SG does not even know what a women is so how can women be protected if they don’t know what a women is

Ah! At last, I've found the legislation online rather than on a bloody pdf. I'm just going to post the whole thing here:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/part/3/crossheading/offences-of-stirring-up-hatred

4Offences of stirring up hatred

(1)A person commits an offence if—

(a)the person—

(i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or

(ii)communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, and

(b)either—

(i)in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or

(ii)a reasonable person would consider the behaviour or the communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group.

(2)A person commits an offence if—

(a)the person—

(i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, or

(ii)communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, and

(b)in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to a characteristic mentioned in subsection (3).

(3)The characteristics are—

(a)age,

(b)disability,

(c)religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation,

(d)sexual orientation,

(e)transgender identity,

(f)variations in sex characteristics.

(4)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable.

(5)For the purposes of subsection (4), in determining whether behaviour or communication was reasonable, particular regard must be had to the importance of the right to freedom of expression by virtue of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the general principle that the right applies to the expression of information or ideas that offend, shock or disturb.

(6)For the purposes of subsection (4), it is shown that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable if—

(a)evidence adduced is enough to raise an issue as to whether that is the case, and

(b)the prosecution does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is not the case.

(7)For the purposes of subsections (1)(a)(i) and (2)(a)(i), a person's behaviour—

(a)includes behaviour of any kind and, in particular, things that the person says, or otherwise communicates, as well as things that the person does,

(b)may consist of—

(i)a single act, or

(ii)a course of conduct.

(8)For the purposes of subsections (1)(a)(ii) and (2)(a)(ii), the ways in which a person may communicate material to another person are by—

(a)displaying, publishing or distributing the material,

(b)giving, sending, showing or playing the material to another person,

(c)making the material available to another person in any other way.

(9)A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—

(a)on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both), or

(b)on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years or a fine (or both).

I'm actually not sure if that's quite correct. That's the case for existing UK law, as I understand it.

The new offence of 'stirring up hatred' is not a Non Crime Hate Incident, it's an actual criminal offence.

Existing law allows for a 'hate crime' aggravator.

The new Bill has this as part 1, but part 2 is creating a new offence. 'Stirring Up hatred'. This is punishable by prison time.

As ever, not a lawyer, would be REALLY happy to be corrected.

I've (skim) read a couple of reviews of third party hate crime reporting - one from England, one from Scotland. Both cite issues, to do with training, understanding, effectiveness.

As far as I could tell the criticisms were that not enough hate crimes were being reported, so the suggestions were we need to step up this citizen-informant network pronto.

It's a bit strange in terms of employee rights too.

If I signed up to be a shop worker I'd expect to be paid a lot more, and have boundaries well defined in my contract, if I'm also expected to be some kind of crime support worker alongside working on checkout.

Unless it's just a Stasi-esque attempt to get pure citizens to report thought crimes....

It's so obviously bonkers (and Stasi-esque) it really does call into question whether the police are fit for purpose. Whoever came up with this needs to get fired.

Doesn't it actually breach lots of the public duty responsibilities? For all that police vetting is clearly rubbish (Couzens, Carrick and the rest), they're not supposed to just hand over the power to decide what raises to the level of a crime (or thought crime) to random mushroom farmers.

This is the uk hate crime reporting page.

I'm going to use it every time someone is mean to me!

https://www.report-it.org.uk/

It looks like it was made by a 14 year old in 1998

😂

Why are they wasting time on this shit?

I know why of course.

To clarify, I didn't mean people on this discussion have misunderstood.

I meant in general society. There is probably a big misunderstanding about what is being proposed.

(Edited due to my usual typos).

I think there's a misunderstanding that 'hate crime' means 'being mean to someone regarding their protected characteristics'.

People don't realise that any crime (pretty much) could be a hate crime, if its motivated by hate for a specific legally defined group.

So these could be any and all crimes being reported.

It's such a ridiculous idea.

That is also a good point. Will staff be trained in dealing with vulnerable and distressed people reporting something sensitive.

It's a very difficult job and requires specific skills. I am not sure I would want to do that if I signed up to work for a mushroom farm.

And what checks and balance are there to ensure that all incidents reported via the mushroom farm/ sex shop/ disused office block/chip shop/ hairdresser are actually passed along to the police without being filtered out, if the person taking the complaint thinks its ridiculous bollocks/ can't be arsed/is a bit incompetent? How will they manage the unregulated input of all these untrained poorly supported staff?

My local leisure centre couldn't deal with me complaining about having being overcharged for swimming (it took several emails and a phone call to the area manager, and yes it was worth it because it was 50 quid). How are their Scottish counterpart going to deal appropriately with someone who perceives they've been on the receiving end of a hate crime?

This has got the potential for making reporting so much harder for vulnerable people who have an actual grievance.

This is as mad as balls. Are they checking correct data handling? What is the legal status of this data? Is it being collected and stored in standard ways across all of the reporting centres?

I am currently working on a system to collect sensitive and special category data from third parties. It is taking months to set up the reporting framework, checking the legal grounds for requesting the data, writing the data protection impact assessment, establishing a secure reporting and storage channel, setting controls on who sees the data and who it is shared with etc... I have lawyers crawling over every stage, as is right and proper.

This is what happens when politicians and pressure groups think it is easy to "just set something up".