Using 'hate incidents' for unintended purposes

[DeaconBoo]

Only posting on FWR as there's been some discussion about hate incidents here (as opposed to hate crimes) - as a reminder (www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/hate-crime/what-are-hate-incidents-and-hate-crime/)

The police and Crown Prosecution Service have agreed a common definition of hate incidents.

They say something is a hate incident if the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on one of the following things:

<strong>disability</strong>
<strong>race</strong>
<strong>religion</strong>
<strong>transgender identity</strong>

sexual orientation.

This means that if you believe something is a hate incident it should be recorded as such by the person you are reporting it to. All police forces record hate incidents based on these five personal characteristics.

Anyone can be the victim of a hate incident. For example, you may have been targeted because someone thought you were gay even though you’re not, or because you have a disabled child.

We know that no crime, nor intent of hatred, nor proof of hatred, nor proof of anyone having the protected characteristics, needs to occur. As far as I can make out, it's just 'an incident'.

I got to wondering whether you could use hate incidents to stop anything you felt like? If someone has a planning application in that you'd rather wasn't successful, could you say that you feel the proposed development, or the planning application, was a hate incident against a certain religion? Could you say that being unsuccessful in your job application was a hate incident? If a bakery refused to let you have free samples perhaps you perceived that as a hate incident? Or you weren't allowed to use staff toilets in a restaurant or office building?

Clearly I'm not going to waste police time by testing this out but I do wonder what would happen, particularly in procedures carried out by local authorities who are supposed to have hate incident policies - like the planning application example. Surely if it's reported as a hate incident, then it is a hate incident, and should be stopped? Do the police require you to specify anything when you report it? Just idly wondering, really....

Don't know if this helps but a couple of anecdotes.

A couple of years ago I had to report a series of small scale incidents/crimes all very similar and involving the same person. The police and my employer encouraged me to report each separately so they were recorded as separate crimes each time and generated numerous crime reference numbers. Each time when I called 101 and after giving details I was asked if I considered this a hate crime (I didn't) so it's as simple as saying yes or no.

An incident that I know was recorded as a hate crime (unless it was later ammended) involved a small business owner, a lesbian, who fell out with a younger casual employee who she suspected of having his hand in the till. He was a straight male. He rang the police to report the 'abuse' and said he did consider this to be a hate crime based on sexuality triggered by her jealousy of him having a girlfriend whilst she didn't! The police turned up within hours to investigate this crime.

Interesting, ThingyBob, and sorry you had to report anything.

I think I'm thinking even more widely, so the 'incident' that has happened could be nothing more than a routine policy that does not actually discriminate against anyone (e.g. no urinating in this car park) that you could then say was a hate incident because you didn't like it. There's no requirement for any characteristics to actually come into play - someone just needs to 'perceive' it as hate.
Guidance also says "If you tell the police you think something is hate incident, they should record it as such. It doesn’t matter if the police officer dealing with the matter perceives it differently.
You don’t have to show evidence of prejudice or hostility to report a hate incident.
However, when the police investigate the incident they will have to find evidence of prejudice or hostility to charge the offender with a hate crime."

If you're not interested in something being recorded as a crime, but as a hate incident in order to leave a black mark on their record - somewhere, somehow - you don't seem to need any evidence of anything at all. Just wondered how far you could actually weaponise this to basically do what you like. Or would a 'note' on someone's record of 'hate incident' become totally meaningless if everyone decided that their neighbour's planning application for an extension was a hate incident?

I haven’t seen any campaigns from disabled people’s organisations to report pavement parking as hate incidents. That would create a huge volume though?

Interesting that sex is never mentioned. You can't report misogynistic attacks as hate incidents. Is this because misogyny is OK or simply because the police would be completely overwhelmed if we all reported?

@NearlyGranny

Interesting that sex is never mentioned. You can't report misogynistic attacks as hate incidents. Is this because misogyny is OK or simply because the police would be completely overwhelmed if we all reported?

Both, I reckon.

I'm not sure what you are getting at, OP, with this question: "Or would a 'note' on someone's record of 'hate incident' become totally meaningless if everyone decided that their neighbour's planning application for an extension was a hate incident?"

How would it become meaningless, apart from its inherent meaninglessness in the first place?

As far as I recall, it falls into the police remit of intelligence gathering which the law allows it to do for legitimate purposes to do with crime, such as crime prevention or reduction - not sure of the exact wording. I don't know if it includes monitoring.
If you have one of these meaningless things (because they could be totally mistaken, made up or unevidenced in any way) recorded against your name and you apply for a job in certain occupations or specific roles that require disclosure from police records, it could be disclosed. So it isn't entirely meaningless in the sense of not having any use or consequences.

@OneEpisode

I haven’t seen any campaigns from disabled people’s organisations to report pavement parking as hate incidents. That would create a huge volume though?

Good point. There are tons of "legitimate" offences like this (not actual crimes) that this could be used for and I'm kind of surprised they're not. Homophobia too, spread by quite a lot of woke ppl on SM.

abitofalark agreed, i guess i mean if everyone had one recorded every day the pointlessness of how it's currently defined would become very clear and would lose any kind of currency? Bit of a moot/ academic point though.

@OneEpisode

I haven’t seen any campaigns from disabled people’s organisations to report pavement parking as hate incidents. That would create a huge volume though?

that's because disabled people are required by law not to leave their houses.

Or so it seems.

@NearlyGranny

Interesting that sex is never mentioned. You can't report misogynistic attacks as hate incidents. Is this because misogyny is OK or simply because the police would be completely overwhelmed if we all reported?

Is there a way to use sexual orientation to record misogyny as a hate crime? As females we all have an orientation, or is it only for LGB and exclusively heterosexual women couldn't use it. Daft try really, but I get so fed up that misogyny is just dismissed and/or ignored.

Is there a way to use sexual orientation to record misogyny as a hate crime?
You can record anything as a hate incident, as I understand it, hence my OP question. You can just say you perceive it as something that was motivated by hatred towards your sexual orientation.
Would be happy to be told I was wrong and there were actually some checks or requirements to state a link between the incident and any characteristic you might or might not have.

The hate crime law has led to an autistic teenager being fined and getting a criminal record for being confused about the sex of a transgender police officer www.adultistic.com/news/teen-aspergers-charged-hate-crime-transgender-officer

Clymene I know, and it's shocking. I think hate crimes and hate incidents are completely different things in reality, though, despite being lumped together often or talked about as if an 'incident' is a sort of lesser 'crime' rather than just an unevidenced 'thing that has happened'. I think this is what I'm trying to tease out!

I am still slightly unclear on what an “incident is”. As I understand it, something that is an incident is not a crime. Either can be motivated by hate or not. Crimes are recorded whether or not motivated by hate. Incidents are only recorded if motivated by hate. So far I as I understand it, the presence of hate doesn’t elevate an incident to becoming a crime. So therefore what is an incident?

Would be happy to be told I was wrong and there were actually some checks or requirements to state a link between the incident and any characteristic you might or might not have

I thought it was the case that you didn't need to have a protected characteristic in order to report a hate crime/incident hence SG reporting almost 30 incidents one year.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I am still slightly unclear on what an “incident is”. As I understand it, something that is an incident is not a crime. Either can be motivated by hate or not. Crimes are recorded whether or not motivated by hate. Incidents are only recorded if motivated by hate. So far I as I understand it, the presence of hate doesn’t elevate an incident to becoming a crime. So therefore what is an incident?

No idea. But I don't think the teenager I quoted was motivated by hate.

And probably, neither was the person who called this person Mister in a letter.

Sussex Police apology over hate crime letter www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-36737692

I've had a lot worse than 'it's a man' shouted at me in the street but as misogynist abuse isn't considered hateful nor worthy of note, I ignore it.

Let's face it, if women recorded every incident of verbal abuse we received as a hate crime, we'd need a double in the number of police officers just to process the reports.

So is an incident anything perceived as unpleasant by the “victim”? And (like with the presence or otherwise of hate) is this irrespective of the motivation/intention of the person who “committed” the incident?

*by the victim or by an observer

I don't know if it even needs to be unpleasant, Pale. Just 'an incident'. Which means 'event', which we know can apply to a tweet. The vagueness of it is deliberate, imo.

I have the distinct impression it's a way of building evidence against a person without any crime or offence being involved. A kind of insurance policy, somewhat like the Stasi used to gather on virtually everyone, in order to keep everyone under suspicion and justify surveillance, etc, as they wish, without any good legal reason for doing so. It's a means to control the population effectively, and maintain a 'chilling effect', under the guise of fighting 'hate'.

I mean, jealousy is nasty and can lead to crime. We should probably legislate that, too. Also covetousness. Sloth. Etc.

So the perceived hate is itself the incident? Eg. overhearing someone say transwomen are men (without thé listener hearing any other part of the conversation or knowing anything about the person speaking) could be reported to the police and recorded as a hate incident?

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I am still slightly unclear on what an “incident is”. As I understand it, something that is an incident is not a crime. Either can be motivated by hate or not. Crimes are recorded whether or not motivated by hate. Incidents are only recorded if motivated by hate. So far I as I understand it, the presence of hate doesn’t elevate an incident to becoming a crime. So therefore what is an incident?

Good question. For something to be recorded as a crime it has to fit the definition of crime. Hate itself is not a crime. Hate crime generally means public order offences as defined in the Public Order Act, such as speech or actions inciting racial or religious hatred or intended to cause fear alarm or distress and constituting harassment as defined in the act.

Apart from crime, the police want to gather information about the prevalence of various things in society which are deemed to be harmful or undesirable so they record reports or intelligence gathered or observed which may not meet the criteria for crime. The scale and number of such reports - or what they call hate incidents - may give an idea of how prevalent some types of hate may be.

The scale and number of such reports - or what they call hate incidents - may give an idea of how prevalent some types of hate may be
Apart from misogyny, where they dont give two hoots.

PaleBlueMoonlight is absolutely right as far as I can see - the phrase "hate incident" has no meaning or status in law. Its only use can be a sinister one of attempting to intimidate people by gathering information that could be used against them at some later date.

@ArabellaScott

I don't know if it even needs to be unpleasant, Pale. Just 'an incident'. Which means 'event', which we know can apply to a tweet. The vagueness of it is deliberate, imo.

Exactly. An unevidenced thing that has happened, according to one person. Say I didn't like the name of the restaurant "Wimpy" and perceived it as a pejorative term, towards terrible outdated notions of, I don't know, disabled people or homosexual people or something (I'm not even sure if I'd be required to say "X is offensive because Y" rather than just "I found X offensive".) Could I report every use of the restaurant's name as a hate incident? And more importantly, would they have any sort of obligation (I'm sure not legally, but socially?) to do anything about it? Change it, make a statement etc? (Or counter-report the original person reporting it for harassment themselves?!)

Its inevitable it will be used in unintended ways like terrorism laws because these laws are vague and poorly defined and their nature as instruments of authoritarianism to control thoughts as well as deed will make they a magnet for every narcissist out there.

Its incredibly poorly thought out law and the refusal to discuss difficult areas around some subjects for fear of offending leaves those it seeks to protect often ironically more vulnerable to abuse.