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....

THis is from Citizen's Advice

'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.'

I wonder if it's possible to report someone's report of a claimed hate incident as a hate incident itself? Of course then they could retaliate in the same way, but it would just show how absurd the whole procedure is.

I wonder if it's possible to report someone's report of a claimed hate incident as a hate incident itself? Of course then they could retaliate in the same way, but it would just show how absurd the whole procedure is
Probably you could, and possibly along the way be accused of wasting police time (for a guess, I don't actually know)
But first you'd need to be informed about the hate incident. Far as i can tell, the perpetrators of the incidents aren't necessarily informed. If they are informed, they don't realise it's a black mark against their name.
Has anyone discovered if enough incidents triggers a warning, investigation or something?
Could this get to a court case? If putting a sticker on a shop window is a hate incident, would more of the same stickering windows lead to prison?

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'.

That ship sailed over 17 years ago, as society cheered and clapped the nuLab crackdown on crime with ASBOs. Administrative devices which allowed the state to criminalise non-criminal behaviour. There were, of course siren voices that noted such a power was inevitably open to abuse, but they were rounded ignored as "whinging lefties".

As the Irish quite presciently note. If you want to go there, you really wouldn't start from here. You need to go waaaaay back in time to unpick the imperceptible steps that led here. You also need to find ways to explain why you supported them too.

It will happen - in another 15, 20 years. I hope to see it. Not all of us will.

Blair wanted to do pre emptive correction, iirc. Identify people likely to commit crime and take steps to somehow lessen the likelihood of it happening. Profiling, of course.

Article on pre crime here: www.therevival.co.uk/forum/general/1754

The UKs very own Home Office leads the way in pre-crime detection. It wasn't really reported on (which is another subject entirely) but when they were caught illegally keeping the DNA and fingerprints of people who were never charged, let alone found guilty of anything, their response was "well, yes, they may not have been found guilty of anything now, but who knows what the future may bring"

Of course no one spoke out against that, because ... well who cares if a few people have their rights removed ? They were probably bad'uns if the police arrested them.

Now we're here, where you can have an "incident" put on your DBS visible file. Happy days.

It's terrifying. And none of the people I would have expected to be investigating/complaining are saying anything. (Amnesty, Liberty, etc)

@ArabellaScott

It's terrifying. And none of the people I would have expected to be investigating/complaining are saying anything. (Amnesty, Liberty, etc)

What ? And get accused of being apologists for paedos ?

As I keep scratching out like a broken record - that ship sailed years ago. And there will be people here and now who are "horrified" who greased the slipway and helped push it out.

You've been had folks - this is what you wanted.

Eh? Who, me?

You can find out more about this here: www.faircop.org.uk/about/ it’s been/being legally challenged.

Here’s an episode of TRIGGERnometry with a run down of the events and may answer some of the questions you have

My understanding is there can be no judgement around hate incidents - they are purely in the eye of the beholder. However the problem about reporting incidents as eg transgender hate because you are not transgender is one use that is definitely made is by those tracking numbers of these incidents. Absolutely no assessment is made on the reasonableness or who it the so called ‘victim’ - just ‘increase in hate incidents so we must be more oppressed’

We've already reached the point at which "Looking at me in a funny way" will get your name taken (Paperien bitte as my grandfather would have heard).

And of course, you have to prove your identity to the nice police officer for the recording. So that'll be photo ID or else.

And the best thing of all is that powers like these can be uses so arbitrarily, you'll never be sure if you're safe from them.

Still, if it saves just one hurt feeling, I'm sure it's worth it. We've already been condition to insist the end justifies the means.

Of course, reporting a hate incident could be considered a hate incident itself

An ex-police officer yesterday suggested that the police themselves could be seen as a minority & unprovoked attacks on them could be seen as hate crimes.

I nearly choked on my cocoa.

@ifIwerenotanandroid

An ex-police officer yesterday suggested that the police themselves could be seen as a minority & unprovoked attacks on them could be seen as hate crimes.

I nearly choked on my cocoa.

Well any minority really ... remember, it only has to be in the complainants mind.

Presumably reporting drug dealers becomes a hate incident ? Although I have to admit that classing drug dealers as a minority in the UK might be stretching things too far.
t.

I also wonder whether there's anyone with enough profile, resources and inclination who, if they were to discover a bunch of hate incident reports had been made against them, they might join and further the Fair Cop legal case? I don't know who - in my mind, some kind of Piers Morgan type I guess. And I seriously am not advocating (again) spurious reporting, just thinking about 'logical endpoints' and where this could all go.

Plenty of microaggressions could be reported - the parking on pavements thing as above, for example.

Who is the female academic/ journalist who discovered these non-crime complaints on her record accidentally? (tweets she made, of course) I read her article a few weeks ago - she urged everyone to check their records and challenge them for exactly this reason. Embarrassingly, I can’t remember who it was...

The perception of the person making the complaint has been used for many years in a number of contexts- workplace harassment policies for example. Intended I expect to avoid a defence of 'I'm not racist I have a black friend' for example.

nachthexe it was Spero :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3982831-I-have-been-recorded-by-my-local-police-force-as-hateful

@nosswith

The perception of the person making the complaint has been used for many years in a number of contexts- workplace harassment policies for example. Intended I expect to avoid a defence of 'I'm not racist I have a black friend' for example.

If you sacked someone on the basis of what another party saying they perceived without carrying out an investigation first of weighing whether harassment had truly taken place then you are likely to find yourself at an employment tribunal.