British police promise to stop cracking down on thoughtcrimes
Britain’s Metropolitan Police will no longer investigate non-criminal hate incidents, officials announced Monday.
What are non-criminal hate incidents?
Non-criminal hate incidents (NCHIs) occur when someone from a protected class feels they were treated with hostility. While not a criminal offense, an NCHI may be reported to police if a person claims that someone else treated them with ill will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment, or dislike based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or transgender identity.
The stated purpose of reviewing NCHIs is for police to gather intelligence on “hate” and learn to recognize behavior that shows “early warning signs” of a hate crime. No legislation requires law enforcement to review NCHIs. According to the Free Speech Union, the practice is based on guidance published by the College of Policing (CoP), a semi-independent oversight body.
In one example of an NCHI, a woman complained that her neighbors had left their “soiled underpants” hanging out for two months. North Wales Police recorded it as an NCHI because the neighbor had an Italian last name and the underwear was hung in the same month that Italy beat England in the Euros final.
In other instances, NCHIs were reported when a West Yorkshire doctor misdiagnosed a bisexual patient, a nine-year-old called a classmate a “retard,” a person in Norfolk called a Welsh person a “sheep shagger,” and a former policeman questioned in a social media post whether “transgender women” are real women.
Citizens are not necessarily notified if they are accused of an NCHI, but it is recorded against their name in criminal databases. NCHIs can come up in background checks by employers, which means that someone who expresses a disfavored opinion in public or in private can lose employment opportunities if it is reported.
A study published last year by the think tank Policy Exchange estimated that British police have been spending approximately 60,000 hours a year investigating NCHIs.
“Each report takes several hours to record, investigate and supervise – involving several police officers, police staff and supervisors,” the report said. “Given there are estimated to be 13,200 NCHIs completed per annum nationally, it is reasonable to conclude that over 60,000 police hours per annum are being spent on NCHIs.”
Police will ‘focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations’
On Monday, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said NCHIs will no longer be investigated. "The commissioner has been clear he doesn't believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates, with current laws and rules on inciting violence online leaving them in an impossible position," the spokesperson said, adding that the policy change will "provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.”
The announcement came after a public uproar over the recent arrest of TV comedy writer Graham Linehan for criticizing gender ideology on social media.
Linehan, who wrote for popular British shows like “Father Ted” and “The IT Crowd,” has come out strongly against transgenderism. In April, for example, he wrote on X: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops, and if all fails, punch him in the balls.”
When Linehan landed at Heathrow in September, five police officers arrested him, locked him in a cell, and interrogated him over the tweet, as well as others he had written.
Linehan was eventually released, but not before he was banned from posting on X.
“I was arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from speaking online—all because I made jokes that upset some psychotic crossdressers,” he said. “To me, this proves one thing beyond doubt: the UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.”
The Crown Prosecution Service said it has dropped the case against Linehan following a “careful review.”
