Police too PC to fight real crime

[BovaryX]

In an opinion piece in The Times, Jawad Iqbal writes that the police are too busy pursuing people like Harry Miller over tweets to investigate real crimes He cites that 120,000 people have non crime incidents recorded against them and criticises the role of the CPS in creating this dysfunctional paradigm. In a recent poll by YouGov, only 1 in 9 people have confidence the police will investigate if they are the victim of an actual crime. I hope the government are paying attention. They won the support of first time Conservative voters, inter alia, because of a pledge to be tough on crime. As in crimes that are committed beyond the Twittersphere. When do they plan to start?

The case centred on the designation of non crime incidents. The operational guidance from the College of policing, which sets professional standards, says that officers should record it as a hate incident, regardless of whether there was evidence for the truth of the claim

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/police-are-too-busy-chasing-pc-causes-to-fight-real-crime-gd9qwjj3n

Do you think that the non crime incidents recorded are actually crimes then? Do you believe the Times reporter knows more than the police as to what to pursue?

Er, they are by definition non crimes That is the point.

The piece concludes with this defence of freedom of speech, which is under sustained attack by people whose slogan is# no debate. It is way past time to stop pandering to zealots who want to stifle debate.

Free speech is one of the core values that defines us as a society. It is not the police's job to interfere with the rights of people to talk about social and political issues unless they are breaking the law

Damned if they do, damned if they don't really. Police forces are obliged to record non crime 'hate' incidents and the intention is to prevent more serious crimes arising. The rules were drafted after the Stephen Lawrence murder. If they are recorded and investigated then yes, sometimes the human beings will get it wrong one way or another. If you don't think that non crime incidents should be recorded (and does.that apply to the recording of non crime domestic incidents, which can be extremely helpful in building up a wider picture of abuse?) then you need to start campaigning to the Home Office to get the rules changed.

Do you have any comments about the existential threat to freedom of speech represented by Harry Miller's case? The judge described the police response as designed to silence Harry Furthermore, the judge quoted Professor Kathleen Stock as evidence that the people determined to silence this debate have a tendency to accuse people of 'hate crimes' with zero evidence of hate Harry Miller's case illustrates that spurious accusations of hate without supporting evidence can result in a police record. That is something which should worry everyone concerned about freedom of speech. As for violence against women and rape? Convictions for the latter are at an all time low

This is from Harry Miller's judgement:

The evidence of Professor Stock shows that the Claimant is far from alone in a debate which is complex and multi-faceted. Mrs. B profoundly disagrees with him, but such is the nature of free speech in a democracy. Professor Stock's evidence demonstrates how quickly some involved in the transgender debate are prepared to accuse others with whom they disagree of showing hatred, or being transphobic when they are not, but simply hold a different view

Harry Miller has a police record because of this. It is a dysfunctional, untenable situation and its context is a public collapse in confidence in the police to investigate real crimes

Firstly a record could be made of reported incidents without it being used for anything other than joining dots by the police in future cases. Or the police could just speak to the accused and see if that is enough in itself to prevent escalation. Here the non crime incident , which is effectively recording that someone felt that there was hate behind some words, is affecting someone's future employment prospects

Secondly, I think we probably need a better definition of hate incident than people feeling upset. Were the words threatening anything , inciting violence?

Misogyny leads to a lot of hate crime. And it's incredibly common. So much that no one wants to include that as a hate incident,

Has anyone got a link with a share token? Looks an interesting article

Jade I apologise, I can't seem to post a share token. If anyone else can, thank you. Here is a link to a Telegraph article which cites that only four percent of burglaries make it to court. The police have unilaterally decided not to investigate this crime, but they are zealous about Twitter.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/17/number-burglars-brought-court-has-almost-halved-four-per-cent/

@MuddyPuddlesAndPrettyBubbles

They're not "damned if they do, damned if they don't". I want the police investigating crime, not whether or not someone's feelz are hurt. I doubt that I am unique in wanting that. It's not a big ask. Confidence in the police would recover if they would focus on crime rather than putting massive resources into the attempted eradication of wrongthink.

I posted this on another thread, but I think it's relevant because it provides more context. There is escalating violent crime against women and as another poster points out, women are not covered by hate crime legislation. There is an extremely dysfunctional dynamic going on with the police
and Harry's case highlights it.

There is an excellent Telegraph opinion piece which discusses those grim statistics. 17 per cent of murdered women are strangled and their killers are increasingly using a defence of 'consensual sex'
www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/can-no-longer-put-women-danger-homes/?WT.mc_id

This is from languishing posted on the thread about collapse in public confidence in police.

There's a good article in the Times today with Jawad Iqbal covering the implications of Harry's case. Share token

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c14ed62-51ca-11ea-b4ee-385bb4c8d255?shareToken=850c7d43a4b65d064eee519c7c3b0fa3

Quick derail to say to BovaryX - you have to click on the little envelope icon, usually under the headline, which opens a new page with an email and a link to copy and paste. May not be the same on a tablet.

Thank you languishing and thank you for the link!

Recording hate incidents is fine and for intelligence purposes really, so I see no issue in the recording of it (although I personally don’t find his tweets in anyway offensive) But I think it should have been recorded and left at that.

The verdict in Harry’s case did give me pause for thought. I can see there might be occasions when it might be useful to record incidents that were not, in themselves criminal but that might be an indicator of escalating problems.

There might, in fact, be occasions when that information might be useful to those carrying out advanced DBS checks. Those checks might also throw up cases where people had been accused but not convicted, and where children’s safety is concerned, I would be reluctant to say this should never happen.

BUT... what this requires as for the police to show common sense AND be wholly scrupulous as these actions might have a significant effect on someone wholly innocent.

The police have become politicised and I feel perhaps that’s the issue, along with the definition of hate being wholly in the eye of the person reporting it. Used properly, as intended, recording might be okay. But the police should be able to use common sense. If there’s obviously no hate, they should be able to tell the person reporting the incident to stop looking, as the judge suggested.

I feel what’s been lost is balance and common sense.

Can anyone please correct me if I am wrong.
The police exist in order to combat crime. Members of the public contact them when a crime has been committed.
The police should investigate said crimes and then refer to the CPS for prosecution.
Why are the police investigating incidents which are not crimes?
How long has the phrase "non-crime" been in existence?

Smellbellina

If something is not remotely offensive, then why should the police get involved at all, let alone record the incident?

If you don't think that non crime incidents should be recorded (and does.that apply to the recording of non crime domestic incidents, which can be extremely helpful in building up a wider picture of abuse?) then you need to start campaigning to the Home Office to get the rules changed.

I don't think that's the issue. Investigating/triaging whether a crime has occurred and recording if it is not a crime is fine.

The issue (using the Miller case as an example) is:

• that things which are obviously not crimes are still investigated. In the Miller case the officer was quite clear it was not a criminal offence.
• that this takes resources. Finding Miller offline, visiting his work, phone interview.
• that the police are pushing a particular political viewpoint, weakening their position within society.
• that police action against non-criminals for thought non-crimes has a chilling effect on free expression. The judge in the Miller case references the Gestapo in comparison.

I think all of this pre crime stuff comes from the idea of dangerous speech. Twitter is being tracked for trigger words across the world in order to prevent genocide as in Rwanda.
It's a problem now because this idea is being applied to completely different situations in a country that is not on the verge of social collapse (whatever it feels like) without judgement.
It's like the difference between a medicine and poison is the dose. It's the politicization of the police that's the danger. It's perfectly possible that the person reporting the hate incident is the villain not the victim, it's open to abuse.

Why are the police investigating incidents which are not crimes? How long has the phrase "non-crime" been in existence?

andy
Absolutely agree. It is oxymoronic. It leads to the Orwellian situation of Harry Miller, who has a police record which can impede his employment opportunities, yet he has committed no crime Barking mad.

I must admit I had forgotten, until reminded on an earlier thread, how much of this stems from the Macpherson Report and the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry.

It doesn't resolve anything but it does help me make sense of how we got to this point and why there is so much reluctance to discuss it.

@andyoldlabour

Different people find different things offensive.

Why are the police investigating incidents which are not crimes?
How long has the phrase "non-crime" been in existence?

The police remit isn’t just to detect crime but also to prevent it, protect life and property etc. So incidents are recorded for intelligence purposes, there’s a lot of intelligence gathering and recording of intelligence, this was influenced not only by the Macpherson report but also the Bichard enquiry which highlighted the need for forces to easily share intelligence/incidents even when a crime hasn’t been recorded.

I'm still astounded that the person who brought the complaint was given any kind of credibility by the police.