Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped - Government Press Release

[IwantToRetire]

Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped to end policing of petty squabbles and free up officers’ time to fight crime in communities. (31 March 2026)

Police will be told to stop recording everyday rows and online spats, as non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are to be scrapped by the government.

Over recent years, unclear guidance has led to officers being called out to people’s homes over insults and routine arguments.

A lack of clarity around when and how NCHIs should be recorded, the rise of the digital age and social media, and inconsistent approaches between police forces have led to them no longer being fit for purpose.

In new measures announced today, NCHIs will be replaced with a system that lets police get on with their jobs – preventing and fighting real criminals to make communities safer.

After commissioning the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs’ Council for an urgent review of NCHI guidance, the government is now accepting all their recommendations. The final recommendations, published today, set out a series of common-sense reforms to give police a clear, consistent process for handling these types of incidents.

The new system will prevent police from recording lawful free speech, whilst ensuring that reports from the public, which may lead to genuine harm, get the right response. Police will still be able to keep tabs on serious community tensions and protect those who need it.

The Home Office will immediately begin working with policing partners to put these recommendations into action. The process of moving away from the old NCHI system has already started by removing the code of practice.

continues at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-response-to-non-crime-hate-incidents-final-report

And what if Mr Smith does not have an academic interest.
He is just a nasty, hate-filled bigot
Do we just ignore it and record nothing about him...?

I just think in the future, it may come back and bite us.
There will be some horrible crime committed by an individual in the future - and there will be a public inquiry afterwards which shows that the police (or similar service) had multiple opportunities to record his hate-filled lifestyle, but it was ignored as we don't record any NCHI anymore.

The problem is that these NCHI are exactly "going on the word of someone".

Not their word that the thing happened, but their word that the thing that happened was an act of hate. The fact that someone experienced it (or claimed to experience it) as an act of hate was considered proof it is an act of hate.

Thus, women speaking their own truth about the significance of being female-bodied rather than male can be transmutated into women speaking hate simply because the men (in the original sex-based meaning of the word) who deny the significance of sex in women's experiences, needs and rights perceive it that way.

It could, and maybe should, have been done a better way.

But it wasn't. And so Mr Smith the maybe-Nazi was used as the yardstick for Ms Jones the gender critical feminist or Mrs Kamara the anti-FGM activist.

That's fine then

So long as we don't hear in the future the constant droning on of "...things were missed that should, in hindsight, have been recorded..." and "...lessons must be learned..."

And if Mr Smith goes onto hurt or murder someone due to his hate - then so be it - there was nothing we could have done to foresee or prevent it.

Its just 'one of those things'

I think some of the points raised are sadly common among many aspects of policing that mean at some future date someone will say why didn't the police do anything at the time.

The most common being women reporting men for harrassment or even violence. But then not just politicians but even some women's groups have said misogyny should not be a hate crime.

What the Government says:

Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped to end policing of petty squabbles and free up officers’ time to fight crime in communities.

And is said to have been inspired, or rather forced to happenbecause of the police OTT arrest of Glinner, and later the court case against him dismissed.

I would like to think this means the Government in fact recognises that many of the complaints of transphobia aren't that but about individuals effectively harrassing and trying to silence someone by activating the police on their behafl.

By using the word "squabbles" it implies they want to stop the police and law being used as part of some ongoing feud / targetted harrassment.

On issues of more seriousness the UK now has a working definition of both anti-semitism and islamaphobia. So surely this should guide the police when investigating complaints about either.

Its sad that they have had to create a law to tell the police to be sensible.

He is just a nasty, hate-filled bigot
Do we just ignore it and record nothing about him...?

Yes. Because holding views other people don’t like should not be a crime and should not be recorded against your name by a government, however contemptible you personally find them. Remember we are talking here about people holding views that sex is real being considered akin to being a Nazi.

What you’re describing is how the original good intention of NCHIs - to record community racism in the wake of the Steven Lawrence murder - has been ruined by people weaponising the system to impose Stasi-like punishment on people with normal views.

So you either have a system that captures your theoretical antisemitic Nazi but punishes people who hold perfectly reasonable views, or a system that doesn’t capture either but men don’t get to abuse the system to silence women who don’t bow to their identity.

Of course there are ways intelligence can and is recorded in your scenario, so it’s not like it’s a complete doomsday one or the other.

Besides, it could be that Mr Smith is a priest, who was inadvertently bequeathed a whole load of Nazi memorabilia, that was delivered while he was at the pub holding an inclusive cultural event and his befuddled housekeeper put it on display without his knowledge.

As I said, it could, and maybe should, have been done a better way.

But it wasn't. And so Mr Smith the maybe-Nazi was used as the yardstick for Ms Jones the gender critical feminist or Mrs Kamara the anti-FGM activist.

Clearly, the lesson from this failed implementation is that the burden of proof was too low, which resulted in NCHI reporting being abused by both zealots and bad faith actors.

How would you do it better?

How would you do it better?

To have it recorded - at least as intelligence. But they won't be able to now

If the police have attended Mr Smith’s house because of a report of a burglary, then they can record what they found in that file: “Large quantities of anti-Semitic books and pamphlets found at the premises. Mr Smith stated these were being used for research for a book he is writing.”

Incitement to racial hatred is a crime. If the police suspect Mr Smith of inciting hatred of Jewish people, they can open an investigation.

If they do not suspect criminal activity, the note will remain on the burglary file and will be found by an officer doing a deep dive on Mr Smith if he becomes, for example, a suspect in a possible hate crime investigation of GBH against a man wearing a kippah.

What will not now happen is recording an NCHI against Mr Smith’s name. So his lawful possession of racist books will not show up to potential employers on an Enhanced DBS check.

That seems like the right balance to me.

You keep saying this. What are you basing this on? Since the inception of police services they’ve kept information on who might be possible suspects, movers, persons of interest in certain scenarios. Why does scrapping NCHIs change this?

Getting rid of NCHI doesn’t prevent the collection of local intelligence.

Once people were stupid enough to say that anything another person says is hate then it must be hate then obviously it was a bullies's charter and not fit for purpose. It started with anything a person of colour says is racism actually is racism. No, it isnt always and that opened the floodgates to anyone who could claim to be a victim - except women, since women are not allowed to be victims of men. We've seen the word "hate" redefined to include every difference of opinion and everything another person dislikes - whether the average person would recognise it as "hate" or not.

As mentioned incitement to violence is still a crime and if your fictitious person is not just displaying information you dislike then I'm sure the police are capable of finding something they can record. If your fictitious person is female you can be sure of it. What they will no longer be able to do is help bullies harass those who hold a different view.

Maybe if the police used a bit of common sense to determine what claims should be looked into - e.g. Mr Jones has a load of anti-semitic material Vs Miss Smith said women can't have willies on Twitter - then we wouldn't be where we are now 🤷‍♀️

Unfortunately the purposed definition of islamaphobia is so wide its open to the exact same abuse as transphobia has been.
The purposed new definition of islamaphobia whilst not as bad as was originally intended (having already been watered down) it is still a form of blasphemy law just for Muslims and IMHO should be scrapped immediately.

As an atheist I should be able to criticise and ridicule all religions equally, without being abusive ofcourse.
As a feminist I should be able to point out the way islam treats women, and point out the abuses that women under the Islamic regimes like Iran and Afghanistan.
As a woman i should be able to point out the rates of sexual offending by male immigrants form certain cultures and religious backgrounds.
Under the purposed new definition of islamaphobia all of these things could be classed as hate or stirring up hatred because they can be classed as "anti-muslim hostility". The Free Speech Union have repeatedly criticised the purposed definition of islamaphobia.

So you are ok with Ms Jones and Mrs Kamara being classed the same as Mr Smith the maybe Nazi simply because trans rights activists consider recognising women exist to be hate?

You would be ok for an Islamophobic NHCI to be recorded against you fir speaking out against anti Semitism?

If police go to his house, that is part of an investigation. The police don't have an untrammelled right to search a property without a warrant. And properties won't be searched unless as part of an inveatigation, albeit that might of course not end up in a charge.
There are two separate issues being conflated. Police do, and still will, gather intelligence, but that is, for obvious reasons, not in the public domain. It is shared between certain agencies (not all, again for obvious reasons). NCHI are/were in the public domain and that is why they were easily abused.

Some people thought that the Stasi was a good idea, but when the wall fell, it was clear how awful it had been for the ordinary people of East Germany.

Does Noisy want us to essentially have a form of Secret Police in the UK?

I think in all the scenarios you mention the dividing line would be between having an opinion or making a comment about a religion, without then resorting to archetypes that says anyone who follows this religions is a "------".

Just as it should be possible to say I do not believe that anyone can change sex, rather than say anyone who thinks they can change sex should be or is "------".

But all in all I think the problem is that the hate crime laws aren't about this is the dividing line between a valid comment or opinion but about how someone who hears it or has it shouted at them experiences it.

That's why I repeated up thread that the use of the word "squabble" it to imply that the police have been used by some individuals to carry on a vendetta.

Personally I dont think the police, front line or back office are ever going to be the best judge of where the line is.

There are really good reasons that there are strong boundaries around the kinds of intellgence information authorities are allowed to collect and keep about the general public.

Even if they are saying or doing things that aren't considered entirely upstanding.

That is really where this idea leads.

Whether Mr. Jones is a anti-semite or a terf or a black nationalist or lesbian separatist or Mormon or whatever is beside the point.

We do not have thought crime, we and we are allowed to think about and write about and read about the things we want to, with very limited limits like promoting violent action, libel, and things like that.

If, sudden;y, we are allowed to begin to collect information and build up an intelligence picture of citizens who have committed no crime, and done nothing illegal, what is that for, if not to observe those on whom suspicion falls?

Who is comfortable with the idea that the police could be observing us at any time, as they see fit, if they suspect us of wrong think? Thet we have a file somewhere, with all the observations written down. Because it could be anyone.

There is already provision for the police to open investigations where crimes have been committed and someone is a suspect, or there is some really good reason to suspect that a crime has been committed.

Because people are free to do and think what is not explicitly illegal, without the interference of the state in their lives.

I agree thats how it should be, however I have no trust in the police to use such common sense, they've repeatedly proven themselves incapable of discerning between reasonable and legal speach which some may find unacceptable such as no woman has a penis (factually accurate) and something that is actually transphobic because the definition of transphobia is so loose. The labour government is repeating the mistakes of the 2012 definition of transphobia with its purposed definition of islamaphobia, its just to loose and open to abuse by those who dont believe anyone should criticise islam. And if im totally honest I fear that it will lead to more harm than good. All hate crime laws should be scrapped. An incel punching a random woman just because she's female should not be considered a lesser crime than someone punching a random trans person just because they are trans but under hate crime laws it is

I agree that even if the concept was perfectly laid out, to leave it to say a police person on the beat or at the front desk, is just no guarantee of consistent decision making, or that the police person is competent to make it.

It does seem that because the Glinner Heathrow airport incident and the following court case was an embarrassment they have put out this statement about "squabbles". But that again that means somehow whoever is dealing with it can intuit this isn't a real complaint this is someone using the system out of spite.

And I think as a society we have gone way beyond people observing the rules of living in a shared community.

Especially when you have got social media which needs these types of "incidents" to feed on. Which can mean that genuine incidents dont get dealt with.

The only good part of this is that in a small way it means the Labour Party has realised that all those long list of "harms" done to trans people are not always "harms" but an abuse of the system.

Which makes you wonder why they didn't have the guts to just say this explicitly.

@IwantToRetire the thing about the abuse of hate crime laws and NCHI by TRAs is that it shows how the hate crime laws and NCHI are not only being abused, but how the whole hate crime system creates a 2 tear justice system that protects (allows abusive reporting by) certain special groups while enabling the exact same crimes or worse committee against other groups to be ignored, a good example is the woman at a Aberdeen womens rights event was punched by a TRA and he got nothing more than a police caution yet days before a gay TRA MSP got called an accurate name(i wont repeat it as i dont want banned) and the person who name called was arrested and almost prosecuted until public outrage caused the procurator fiscal to drop it.
For the labour government to admit that hate crime laws and NCHI are being abused because the definitions are to loose and open to abuse it would cause the whole system to be called into question and scrapped as there is now way to have some groups protected by it and others not. Look at the Scottish hate crime laws and how they were ment to work ie saying men cannot be women or calling a man a man was supposed to be a hate crime but then JK daring them to arrest her for calling men men and people going after humza yusaf for his racist tirade gave the police no choice but to arrest both JK and the then 1st minister for hate crimes of effectively gut the law. Thats basically where labour are now gut the law or admit its so poorly drafted that is an invitation to have the police ant judicial system bully people you dont like (if you're one of the special groups) or gut it but doing it on the QT as labour are.
Hate crime laws will go as they are so unjust, subjective and open to abuse that they are in themselves a form of abuse and unfit for purpose. The only question is how many more will be harmed by them before the whole system crashes down.

I also admit that the Father Ted episode did flutter briefly through my head!

The only question is how many more will be harmed by them before the whole system crashes down.

I dont think the whole system will crash down. Although possible a new Government might have getting rid of it as part of its agenda.

I think it will stumble along as it has been for a while, and this is just a gesture or nod towards the police themselves to not get caught up in "squabbles".

But again that means that it all comes to an idividual police person taking a decision based on their person understanding.

However to have a system where a consistent group of people would review each incident to see if it should be recorded would be time consuming, but might be if not fairer at least consistent.