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Britain’s Labour home secretary has confirmed that police will no longer investigate most alleged ‘hateful’ comments, although concerns remain over existing database records and whether the new approach still risks undermining free speech.
The recording of so-called ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHI)—statements believed to be “motivated by prejudice” but that don’t meet the criteria for criminal offences—has been under fire for some time, especially following high-profile cases, such as the one involving comedy writer Graham Linehan.
The establishment’s position—which has been backed by both Labour and the Conservatives—has also been undermined by cases involving children, including two schoolgirls given NCHIs for saying a classmate smelt “like fish.”
Now, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said incidents will only be recorded by police if they are deemed relevant to their “core duties” of preventing and solving crimes.
Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, described this as an “important victory,” but stressed: “The battle to protect free speech from overzealous policing continues.”
His group, which has campaigned for NCHIs to be scrapped, is particularly concerned about the tens of thousands of NCHIs already on police databases—about which, he says, “nothing has been said”—as well as “the risk of them appearing in enhanced employment checks, potentially preventing individuals from obtaining a job.”
And while their record on this front is far from clean, the Tories have also suggested that Mahmood’s announcement amounts to little more than a “rebrand,” since incidents will still be recorded. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said, “Officers and staff will still be tied up monitoring incidents that do not meet the criminal threshold, at a cost in time and resources.”
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