It’s mad to record petty problems as crime, says police chief

[WashAsDelicates]

Front page of today's Times.

If a patient with serious health issues declared to their GP they were sure they had cancer, they would be examined properly by a professional.
But their belief that they were suffering the disease would not be recorded on NHS statistics until it was actually confirmed.
That is the analogy used by Sir David Thompson, chief constable of the West Midlands, to highlight “mad” crime recording rules, because the approach taken by the police is the opposite.

Heard him being interviewed on LBC earlier - he said words to the effect that if people get upset about others saying mean things, they should get off Twitter!
(Nick Ferrari show, just before 10 am)

But if the victim states that they are being harassed or finds a post grossly offensive - then its a crime by definition.

Or who decides if its a crime or not - who decides if the victim is harassed or not

Being grossly offended by a tweet does not make said tweet a crime.

At last, the grown ups have arrived. Hopefully all of the other forces will follow this line, if only to improve their crime stats.

It's not though, at least not consistently. I was harassed by my ex for years and police did nothing. My feeling that I was being harnessed (and having evidence of said harassment) was not enough to make it a crime in the eyes of the police.
Being offensive is not criminal.

The Chief constables have been told to stop investigating hurty feelz on Twitter and get out investigating proper crime.
Reading some recent reports on police behaviour , it seems that some of them didn't get the memo

He was headhunted for Manchester because he had already turned around another force by going back to basics. They all need to learn from him.

In July 2016 Stephen took up his appointment as Chief Constable for South Yorkshire Police (SYP). During his tenure, SYP became one of the most improved force in the country for 3 consecutive years and is today amongst the very top tier of high performing forces.

Stephen became Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police in May 2021.

oh nvm, wrong thread, wrong person

Two of them are better than 1 though!

let’s hope both forces get good crime resolution data in the coming months as it will pressure others to follow their lead.

TheClogLady
The Tweet might not be a crime on its own - but if a person says they are harassed by it - the harassment will be the crime under NCRS rules

BewareTheBeardedDragon
Was the harassment years ago? As the crime recording standards have changed recently meaning that it would have been crimed as harassment now.

Sure, but offence is not harassment, is it?

Tweets can be sent into the ether, they aren’t necessarily aimed at anyone.

And harassment needs to be more than one tweet.

www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/har/harassment-on-social-media/

Not strictly true for crime reporting standards

Section 2 harassment 1997
A person must not pursue a course of conduct, which amounts to harassment of another, and which they know or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.

You don't specifically need 2 occasions or more. If the victim states that this is causing me harassment, then the threshold for the crime is met

May not be enough to charge - but charging standards are not the same as crime recording standards

You also have mal comms if the victim states that they find the tweet grossly offensive. May not be sufficient to charge, but would be to crime.

Is crime and incident being interchanged here? Just wanting to be sure we understand each other perfectly.

Hate incidents are certainly being recorded as hate crimes despite a judge saying it shouldn't be. One falls under a legal framework, one doesn't.

Maybe there is a bit of confusion

All incidents are not necessarily crimes. For example, driving offences are not crimes (only death by dangerous). Drink drive is not a crime, drunk & disorderly is not a crime, resisting an arrest is not a crime.

Crimes have to fit within a certain category and then have to meet the threshold for that crime (National Crime recording Standards). And also the threshold to require an incident to be recorded as a crime is a lot lower for the charging standards for that crime.

So, you might have enough to crime an affray, but insufficient to charge anyone with it.

I'm getting confused. Drink driving etc is a crime but called a 'summary offence' and dealt with by magistrates court. It's still a criminal record. Same goes for harassment.

I think a lot of this extra data collection is about the idea of police collecting 'intelligence' to pre-empt escalation i.e. someone says something allegedly 'transphobic' can escalate to violence. Too much data is as bad as too little. Guidelines need to be much tighter.

So, you might have enough to crime an affray, but insufficient to charge anyone with it.

Huh? What does the phrase enough to crime" mean?

And I would assume if you could be sent to jail (drink driving) then it certainly is a crime.

Imnobody4
No, drink drive is not a crime, neither is speeding. I think the only traffic crime is death by dangerous. You might get a conviction for drink drive, but the offence is still not a crime.

Harassment is a crime - so on balance of probabilities, if it passes the threshold for this crime (so someone says I am harassed by something), then a crime is recorded.

Its not a point of recording intelligence, this is handled separately. Its all about ensuring crimes are recorded correctly at the point of reporting.

Pixiedust1234
So, you might have a fight in the street and a member of the public phones in to report it (leave aside that its a state based offence for the time being). You would crime it as people have been placed in fear of violence who were fighting. But none of them are willing to support any kind of prosecution or provide statements, so there would be insufficient to charge as you have no evidence of people being put in fear. So it would be an undetected crime.

However 'belief' is a feature that makes something a crime: hate crime is such if somebody - not necessarily the target of it - brlieves that the action is motivated by hate.

WashAsDelicates
Yes - but you still have to have an associated crime to go with it.
For example - racially aggravated common assault,

My point is that this appears another situation where legislation is fuzzy, unclear, and therefore impossible to reconcile with reality.

Was also wondering whether there's any undertone of stopping the police allowing themselves to be used as the attack dogs of ideologues with hurt feelz.

The statement is also a good analogy of how organisations should react to individuals' claims that they are not their actual sex.

I was hoping GM Police were improving with the new CC, then they put out this press release:

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-issue-appeal-woman-44-25368093

It's been several days,, I don't know if Alice has been found safe. I hope so. It being screamingly obvious what Alice's true identity is, it's provoked mockery rather than concern. The press release could have sensitively acknowledged the trans status of the missing person, giving the idiots less to latch onto.

Anyway it's early days yet with the new CC. The Police may have their hand tied by official guidance, probably from the CoP. But I think it's counterproductive.

How do you mean - attack dogs?

If an incident is reported, its graded as to threat, harm and risk to determine what the response will be.

If its a minor, historic type of crime, then this can be investigated slow time by appointment & voluntary interview - depending on what the evidence is going to be

@IcakethereforeIam this is the unfortunate and horrible side that happens when politicians and stonewall and their followers, and indeed any TW//TM who insist on pronoun changes etc, decide that people are who they say they are rather than what they actually are.

It truly is awful but certain people (men and woman) have been shouting from the rooftops about it for years but have been consistently been ignored. I hope they are found soon.

3 years ago. Thankfully he has since stopped.