"The Metropolitan police has been lauded in some quarters for deciding that it will no longer investigate so-called non-crime hate incidents, in order to allow officers to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations. Against the context of headlines describing the Met as the thought police, something was bound to give. Goodbye and good riddance to non-crime' was one joyful take in the Spectator."
"It's bad for society, for vulnerable people in society and for policing. The bar for illegal hate is high in the UK, and rightly so. Not every incident reported to the police is a crime, but it is right that people feel safe especially when at their most vulnerable and are encouraged to report what has happened. It is sensible that harm can be identified and extremism prevented."
"One tragic example is in the case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her severely disabled daughter Francesca Hardwick following a decade of torment by local youths. Though there were 33 incidents reported to the police, they targeted different members of Pilkington's family at different locations, and the dots were not connected. Many of those incidents should have been recorded as non-crime hate incidents."
The Metropolitan Police decided to stop investigating so-called non-crime hate incidents to allow officers to focus on matters meeting the criminal-investigation threshold. Critics contend the decision is premature and undermines the victim-led policing approach born from the Macpherson inquiry after Stephen Lawrence's racist murder. Recording non-crime incidents helps people feel safe, encourages reporting when victims are most vulnerable, allows harm to be identified, and can prevent extremism. Failure to record and connect multiple non-crime reports can leave vulnerable people unprotected, as shown by the Fiona Pilkington case where numerous reported incidents were not linked and protective interventions were missed. Public debate often excludes those meant to be protected.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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