Parliament petition "Abolish Non-Crime Hate Incidents"

[Seainasive]

Now posting without the link. We should try to get this to 10,000 signatures.

JessaWoo · Today 11:16

So if someone was using posting escalating racist diatribes on Twitter, culminating in a bomb threat to a shopping centre, is finding the user a waste of police resources? If not, at what point do the police step in? Before the bomb threat or after? (In your world, that is.)

Of course, your example is not a non crime.

We're talking about schoolchildren being reported and getting a record, without their knowledge and which is almost impossible to defend against, for calling another kid smelly.

For a mother of four being arrested and the entire family's devices being confiscated for a year, because she commented, "But you're not a woman," to a transw online.

Things like that, which have actually happened.

If you issue a bomb threat, you can be prosecuted under the Communications Act 2003. You may remember this happened to a man who made a joking threat to bomb Nottingham Airport. He was convicted, though the conviction was later overturned, because it was clearly a joke.

There are other laws that govern speech as well as the Communications Act. For example, if you incite racial hatred, you might be in breach of the Public Order Act 1986.

If you say something false and defamatory about someone, that is not a crime, but they could sue you for libel.

The point about non-crime hate incidents is they involve people being a bit rude or a bit cheeky and that, crucially, they do not meet the threshold for criminality.

If someone has not committed a crime, then it should not be the business of the police to be keeping a record of it. To state the obvious, the job of the police is to catch criminals, not to log incidents in which someone has said something that upset someone else.

the 'non-criminal' often has no idea they've been found guilty of a non-crime. No investigation, no chance to defend yourself, no ability to appeal, no way to learn and amend your behaviour.

Amplifying this point because it's the nub of the issue.

No one is saying hateful speech is not bad. But this particular way of tackling it is also bad.

It's not ok to have secret blacklists, it's not ok to destroy someone's good name behind their back without giving them any chance to answer the accusations and it's not ok to do it based on one other person's subjective assessment or feelings.

Do it in the sunlight or don't do it at all.

Even this thread is a perfect illustration of the problem: someone immediately assumed the only reason anyone would object to the logging of NCHI by the police is because that person wants the freedom to be "racist/disablist/etc" without consequences and made that accusation. No time taken to understand what is actually being objected to and why before making the accusation, just a reflex reaction to trigger topics to make the "correct" response and label someone racist/disablist/etc.

Now imagine if instead of that playing out on MN where the misunderstanding could be challenged, it had resulted in a secret NCHI report where the accuser's misapprehension was taken as a fact.

(And all this is without even getting into the glaring injustice that sex, probably the characteristic that results in the highest number of people suffering non-crime hate simply because, with roughly half the population being female, there are so many women to suffer it, is not covered by NCHI.)

11,947

Signed, thanks for highlighting this.

FlirtsWithRhinos

It's not ok to have secret blacklists, it's not ok to destroy someone's good name behind their back without giving them any chance to answer the accusations and it's not ok to do it based on one other person's subjective assessment or feelings.

Yes, look at the national employer's blacklist of the 60s to 80's, compiled with the help of senior Police officers. Business owners, particularly in the building and offshore industries ran names past the Police and wouldn't employ them, as they were told that they were nasty old Trots.

That was actually illegal.

Thanks OP. Time that this was got rid of. More suitable for a totalitarian fascist state, not a democracy.

Absolutely and anyone who cannot see that is being either wilfully blind, deeply prejudicial or just plain obtuse.

Tbf, like too many things that turn out to be bad in practice, it seems good in theory. Who doesn't want to stop hate! But as the old adage goes 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. I don't think NCHIs even help people who are genuinely being targeted. They need a proper police response. People who have not committed crimes are criminalised and people who might be victims of crime are fobbed off.

Goodness, yes! They could have a field day. Imagine the same sort of emotive (il)logic applied, but from different ideological standpoints:

"A woman is an adult human female" = you hate trans people and wish they were dead, so I'm going to report you.

"Black lives matter" = you hate white people and wish they were dead, so I'm going to report you.

In fact, couldn't that be happening anyway? The "protected characteristics" in the Equality Act are the characteristics themselves, not a particular example of a characteristic. (E.g."race" rather than this race or that; "sexual orientation" rather than this orientation or that). If the same applies to the reporting of Non Crime Hate Incidents, who knows what daft accusations may be down against anyone's name?

Done. 12812, now.

12976

Thanks to JessaWoo’s misunderstandings, I feel the issues with this have been laid out extremely clearly 👏

Hurty words should never be a crime.

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@FlirtsWithRhinos

Even this thread is a perfect illustration of the problem: someone immediately assumed the only reason anyone would object to the logging of NCHI by the police is because that person wants the freedom to be "racist/disablist/etc" without consequences and made that accusation. No time taken to understand what is actually being objected to and why before making the accusation, just a reflex reaction to trigger topics to make the "correct" response and label someone racist/disablist/etc.

Actually, I asked for a poster's reasoning behind her post. I made no assumptions there, so that isn't quite a fair picture you've painted there.

Thank you to the posters who've explained a bit about the petition. I still don't agree wholly with it, but I understand more about why you do.

Was this entirely necessary?

"So I'm not misunderstanding you, you want the freedom to be as racist/disablist/etc. as you like without any repercussions?"

Yes you asked, but I don't think it's entirely honest to say you made no assumptions.

A neutral question would be something like "Why do you object to NCHIs? I would have thought discouraging people from being racist/disablist/etc is a good thing", or even "You think people should be free to be as racist/disablist/etc. as they like without any repercussions?". Phrasing it as a direct "You want the freedom to be as racist/disablist/etc. as you like without any repercussions?" is an accusation even if it has a question mark after it.

I'm glad you have taken the extra information on board and understand the reasons many people think this is a bad approach.

Fwiw @JessaWoo I don't think you come from a bad place. Reading some of the things that have been NCHIed I've thought they were stuff I would never say myself but others (saying that a man is a man) are just ridiculous imo. Either way they are non-crimes, so wtf are the police wasting everyone's time with them.

I, as I've posted before, also think they are fobbing off the complainants. Just something to give them to make them go away. These people are either victims of crimes who need genuine help not a paper exercise, or oversensitive /malicious time wasters who need to be told so. I think the police are worried about becoming the targets of the latter types. In a previous life I dealt with them, the mad, bad or sad, I know how persistent they can be. However, no-one should have a police record because the coppers need to give someone something, anything, to make them go away.

"Perceived by another person to be motivated", without burden of proof or evidence, is no basis for a legal or even a quasi-legal system. I am old enough now to realise the extent to which perceptions can be askew, and motives misconstrued

How somebody perceives other people and decides their motives often has more to do with themself - their own attitudes, assumptions and insecurities - than with the subject of their observations.

Interpreting "fuzzy data" such as body language, facial expressions and tones of voice, is not the exact science that some people seem to think it is. Interpreting other people in the absence of this fuzzy data (e.g. online) can be even harder.

Culture and fashion plays a part too. Every society (and subset of society) has its go-to assumptions and explanations, which come more readily to mind

None of us is infallible when it comes to guessing what is going on in somebody else's head.

A perfect example of the problem, JessWoo might say she (or whoever) didn't intend to ... but her (or whoever) intentions don't count, only the way FlirtsWithRhinos perceived her (or whoever) words are what count.

Under the new way of doing things if FlirtsWithRhinos reports JessWoo, JessWoo doesn't have a leg to stand on because she's (or whoever) not allow to defend herself (or whoever), there can be no arguing with FlirtsWithRhinos complaint.

For the record I agree with everything FlirtsWithRhinos said.

"No one is saying hateful speech is not bad. But this particular way of tackling it is also bad."

When the remedy is worth than the disease you look for another remedy. There are plenty of laws - like incitement to violence - that can and should be used for actual crimes.

Twitter is owned by a [this is the general knowledge, not mine] known racist, misogynist, etc man unless you don't think Elon Musk is any of those. If you do then that alone should make you and anyone else who claims to be anti racist, anti misogyny, etc stay off twitter.

It's not as if you have to be on twitter unless you really have to do so maybe for work or for a living but if it's just as a social media platform, you're already failing the anti-anything rhetoric by staying on it knowing who the owner is/believed to be.

Even more frustrating than NCHI's being recorded without your knowledge, is the fact that Police Scotland require your gender in order for you to find out if they hold any under your name! See form: https://www.scotland.police.uk/secureforms/subjectaccess/

Steadily increasing - 15,340