Police Scotland include sex shop in list of locations where you can report a hate crime

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Taken from Twitter -
https://twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1767872003015315532

The list of third party reporting centres are here -
https://www.scotland.police.uk/spa-media/a1epy5nr/greater-glasgow.docx

Seriously?
A sex shop and a mushroom farm?

What does that say about the type of people they are expecting to report?

I thought everything was online these days. What's the point of trekking to a sex shop?

I have so many questions about this. Are minimum wage workers being expected to deal with victims of crime and taking evidence and do the police's job for them? What is the safeguarding and vetting procedure for these people? Is anyone monitoring the veracity and integrity of these crime reports? If you are a victim or defendant in a court case, does the initial reporting to a sex shop or mushroom farm affect the viability of the chain of evidence?

That's just the branches of the Glasgow Stasi! I'm assuming they're not doing it for nothing. I wonder what this is costing?

Post from the JKR thread:

Well, I've been through the lists of third party reporting centres published by Police Scotland.

https://www.scotland.police.uk/contact-us/reporting-hate-crime/third-party-reporting-centres/

The lists largely consist of Councils, Churches, Housing Associations, Community Centres, Youth Clubs, women's aid, Rape Crisis, leisure centres, libraries, etc.

Here is just a handful of the hundreds of third party reporting centres where you can inform on your neighbours:

Aberdeen University Students Union
The Redeemed Christian Church of God
Ayrshire LGBT online
SACRO (remember Mridhul Wadhwa's partner is/was part of Sacro)
LGBT Youth (under Police Scotland investigation, founded by James Rennie)
Oasis Youth Centre Dumfries
Men Only Tayside
6VT Edinburgh Youth Cafe
Shakti Norton Park - where Mridhul Wadhwa used to work
Glasgow Women's Library
Luke and Jack (a sex shop in Glasgow)
Harper Mcleod - a solicitor's firm in Inverness
East Kilbride Shopping Centre
Farne Salmon & Trout
Tweedside Caravan Park
Monaghan Mushrooms

How are all these people going to be trained, vetted, supported? Mushroom farmers, sex shops, librarians, are going to be taking people's details, to pass on to the police, now?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24181930.police-scotland-use-glasgow-sex-shop-hate-crime-reporting-centre/

What about GDPR.

This is the sex shop posting about attending a protest of 'transphobic media'.

https://twitter.com/lukeandjack/status/1462035738338467841/photo/1

I'm missing something here.

Why was there a need for third party reporting anyway?

Why not report directly to a police-run contact point set up directly to deal with hate crime?

Why add a sex shop/mushroom farm/... extra point to the triangle?

How will confidentiality be guaranteed?
Who will be responsible for data protection?
Will staff in the reporting centres be safe if it is known that someone might have reported to them?
etc. etc. etc.

I'm missing something here.
Why was there a need for third party reporting anyway?
Why not report directly to a police-run contact point set up directly to deal with hate crime?

YY, exactly! Either it's worthy of reporting to the police or it's a vexatious waste of time. Why are they trying to collect more reports than those prepared to report to the police?

It's fairly easy to report a crime or a witness report or "something suspicious that may or may not be a crime", in the usual way.

You can call 101 or you can go on your local police force website eg London Met police, and fill in quite a simple online form. I've done it more than once and I'm lazy as anything, it's that easy.

Why would you need shops etc to be reporting centres? How odd, I'm genuinely not understanding. Is it a sort of triage, ie the shop chooses which reports to escalate to the police? We already have 101 for that.

Or are these places meant to be more like a victim support service (for, noticeably, one sort of hate crime only and it ain't antisemitism for example).

So you report it but you also get a free hug/sympathetic tutting etc?

Otherwise I can't see how it's better than calling 101

You can imaging it, can't you? A distressed person stumbles into Ann Summers and cries, "She called me a pig in a wig! Report it to the Police!"

"Oh, how awful - you don't look anything like a pig. Oh, are you Nigel Farrage?"

Yeah right… ‘but Mary - I was just going in tae report a heinous crime, honest!

You can also report anonymously online.

But they say that some people are too scared or vulnerable to go to the police. So they can head to their friendly local sex shop instead.

We at Four Pillars take hate crime of any form very seriously and we will do everything we can to help you report any incidents or targeted incidents to the appropriate authorities.
If you have been targeted because of your disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity, or you are aware of someone else being targeted, you can report it to us or Police Scotland.
Reporting hate crime is important. If you report the incident, we work with Police Scotland to deal with it, we can try to prevent the same thing happening to someone else and together we can aim to get Scotland hate free.
We are committed to dealing with hate crime and take all reports of hate crime seriously.
For some people they do not feel comfortable reporting Hate Crime matters directly to the Police and may be more comfortable reporting it to someone they are familiar with, so you can report any Hate Crime that you have experienced or have witnessed to us.
To ensure everyone is able to report Hate Crimes, the team at Four Pillars have been trained by Police Scotland to become a 3rd Party Reporting Centre. We are able to submit a report to Police Scotland with you or we can make such a report on your behalf.

https://www.fourpillarsuk.org/reporting/

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/hate-crime-law-glasgow-lgbt-sex-shop-designated-official-reporting-centre-for-controversial-new-laws-4553231?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1710347901

'Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells said: “Serious questions must be asked as to who thought a sex shop was an appropriate setting to report a hate crime.

My mind is really boggling. Too scared to approach the police but comfortable walking into a sex shop?

A few years ago I’d have thought this was something for a Monty Python sketch..

'Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation said he was concerned about what the third party centres might do the reliability of crime data.
“With literally hundreds of third party reporting vehicles available - inevitably each one with their own interpretive vagaries - that means data confidence will be nigh on impossible to be derived,” he wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
He added: “I suspect that within a very short period of time we will have ‘data’ suggesting Scotland to be one of the most ‘hateful’ counties on earth. This Jackanory data will be used to justify an endless drive to deliver a Pygmalion utopia.”'

As noted by many, Police Scotland are currently closing police stations nationwide.

I suppose replacing them with ... mushroom farms and sex shops ... is somewhat appropriate.

you are on holiday in Scotland and someone looks funny at you. Lucky you are in that caravan park

off to get some fish at the fish farm place someone misgenders you. Thank fuck for the fish farm

off to get some shopping and a Weegie calls you a bam pot. Thank god I am in East Kilbride shopping centre

thank you my Scottish government I feel so safe

I assume at the demolished office block you report to the site manager or, perhaps, the homeless junkie who dosses down there.

Not just data confidence - what about data confidentiality? Imagine:
"Guess what I overheard when I was buying my trout / bondage gear / saying a prayer"
or :
"Guess what someone said today when they came in to buy a salmon, nipple clamp, asked me to pray with them?"

😱