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.

There's a difference, I would have thought, between making an allegation and reporting a crime.

Exactly this. Many people try to weaponise the agency I work for against people they have other disputes with, or don’t like, for whatever reason. I’d go so far as to say that as many as 50% probably fall into that category and many more are misjudgements on the part of the complainant. Probably less than ten percent of my cases result in the finding of law breaking. It’s not a crime unless law breaking has occurred. If the police class anything else as crime, then something is far wrong with their definition.

Being offended is not a crime, but being harassed is. So receiving Tweets etc that you find harassing will be a crime, as you have a victim confirmation that its is harassing them.

Then why is no action ever taken when women receive online rape threats? When posts are made encouraging others to attack them? When their personally identifying details are published online? When they complain about being harassed and frightened? When they are harassed by repeatedly being reported to the police/social services/their employers by somebody who claims to be offended by their completely non-threatening posts?

Pixiedust1234
Is the 'time stamp' of when it arrived or when it was posted?
Were the posts sent via a computer or a mobile phone - so she could have been at church and posted it using her mobile
Were there a series of posts at differing dates & times
What did the reporting person report?

Imnobody4
The current systems has huge grey areas in it I agree - especially with harassment. Who decides what is harassing or not - the victim, the police, an independent person? At what point do you crime the harassment? If a further accusation of harassment is reported the next day is it added to the first crime of harassment or recorded as a separate one? The list goes on......

As its stands under NCRS, if you have a victim confirmation of a crime and there is no credible evidence against it, its crimed

Drink drive is not a crime, its an offence but not classed as a crime. But you don't necessarily need a victim for it to be a crime - state based offences such as affray don't need an identified victim as such

PriOn1
Nope, the person you are calling a victim is a vexatious claimant....
And where is the credible evidence to support this for it not to be a crime - at the time of reporting? It may be proven after an investigation that it was a malicious report and the crime cancelled - but at the time of reporting you will need something credible to show it hasn't happened. So, accusing someone who is actually dead for example (we had lots of claims against Jimmy Saville committing offence after he had died)

You can't just simply ask the suspect if they have done it or not to gauge if a crime should be recorded? If a victim of DV assault states she was assaulted by her boyfriend - but when police call him the same day, he states its not true as he was with his mates at the time and they will back him up - do we not record the crime of assault?

So at one point does the crime recording system not work?
And who should judge what is a crime and what isn't
Or who is harassed and who isn't?

Bare in mind that the police investigation can range from - no further action at source to a full investigation using CID and similar - but that's the investigation part, not the crime recording part.

IcakethereforeIam
If the allegation is a crime in law and there is no credible evidence against it - then it is recorded as a crime.

TastefulRainbowUnicorn
Yes - i work with victims/survivors of rape and also with various support organisations. Most victims/survivors want to put themselves first and move at their own pace - and rightly so. They want to approach some sort of closure so that they can attempt to move forwards in their life. Some want a prosecution and will do anything & everything to achieve it - but from my experience (22 years) most don't care about the suspect or what happens to them as they are the least thing on their mind. They are happy that they have been arrested & interviewed and that their report of rape has been taken seriously - but most do not want to re-live the whole thing again and argue with the suspect at court 6 months down the line. And I have never had one single compliant of lack of police action or failing to put the victim/survivors first or a similar complaint - in fact, its quite the opposite feedback i get from victims/survivors - so i must be doing something right for them.

Like I say 22 years experience of working with victims/survivors - what do you base your knowledge on?

PriOn1
It’s not a crime unless law breaking has occurred. If the police class anything else as crime, then something is far wrong with their definition.

So when do you record the crime? At the end of the investigation by police or when it has gone to court and the suspect is found guilty?

If they are found not guilty, do we not record the crime?
The assume that the crime has not happened in the first place?

So at one point does the crime recording system not work?

When a political group, such as trans rights activists, encourage others to make reports about anything and everything that they imagine might be seen as possibly offensive, assuming the force is wearing it’s rainbow glasses so they can’t see straight. That’s when you get false statistics, showing a huge rise in hate crime, because someone decided that pointing out their sex was harrassment.

And who should judge what is a crime and what isn't

Someone competent and of sound mind, who is not politically motivated in one direction or other and can make those decisions without fear or favour.

Or who is harassed and who isn't?

Someone competent and of sound mind, who is not politically motivated in one direction or other and can make those decisions without fear or favour.

I realise there are problems with this approach, but it’s better than a blank assumption that everyone who makes a claim is inevitably right, when it’s becoming obvious that privilege is being abused by those who want to abuse others.

So would this be the same for DV harassment cases - where on ex-partner is harassing the other.

Who makes the judgement there to say if its harassment or not?
Someone competent and of sound mind - like a crime registrar? Most forces have these

And do we crime it at the start of the investigation or at the end once its been to court?

Felix125

We are talking about malicious communication on line. There have been enough cases thrown out by the courts now to give a clear picture of what is not harassment - Harry Miller, the Flag case etc,
etc Are you aware of all these cases?

You are completely ignoring the duty of police to uphold freedom of expression. They have been repeatedly told not to police Twitter spats and get on with real crime. The College of Policing has been told to review it's guidance.

It would be perfectly possible for someone to claim an accuser was harrassing them in order to silence their freedom of speech, it's become ridiculous because the police are favouring one particular group and ignoring other people's rights.

Your posts really aren't coming across that well, indeed most appear incomprehensible. I asked several people to see if they could explain what you meant on this thread. None actually could.

"It seems to have been written by someone whose first language is bollocks"
"Specifically the gibberish dialect of bollocks" seems to be the general consensus.

If you really are a police officer who deals with the general public I suggest you look at your communication style. Its awful.

It doesn't help using 'crime' as a verb and a noun.

And do we crime it at the start of the investigation or at the end once its been to court?

I expect you’ll have to do a bit of ‘decriming’ when the judiciary once again roll their eyes at the nonsense the police and CPS are bringing into their court rooms.

A couple of tweets about a niche public figure (not even tweeted AT them, just out into the ether) and a repeated pattern of harrasment (eg multiple unwanted phone calls/text messages/emails over several hours/days/weeks) by someone’s ex partner aren’t remotely alike (even if you really, really want to record them using the same code).

Imnobody4
Malicious communications on line. Take a DV case where one ex-partner is sending abusive messages to the other.

Who decides if the abusive messages are causing the victim harassment? Or do we say its freedom of expression?

Like is say - I receive loads of abusive death threats over the phone aimed at me and my family which i ignore. Other people might not be able to ignore them and want action taken against the poster - especially if its an ex-partner.

Do we crime these and investigate or not?

Pixiedust1234
Which post don't you understand and I'll explain them.

To 'crime' something means that the police acknowledge that what ever report is made to them is a crime and needs pursuing as such.

That perusal may range from a full investigation to no further action - the police response is not related to whether an incident is 'crimed' or not.

TheClogLady
A couple of tweets about a niche public figure (not even tweeted AT them, just out into the ether) and a repeated pattern of harrasment (eg multiple unwanted phone calls/text messages/emails over several hours/days/weeks) by someone’s ex partner aren’t remotely alike (even if you really, really want to record them using the same code).

I agree - there is a huge range. 2 tweets might be enough for one victim to say they are harassed - and maybe the police could write that off at source and not class it as a crime and just take the flack if the reporting person complains.

But there is a huge amount of cases that fall between your two examples which causes a huge 'grey area' for criming standards.