This morning it’s been reported that three quarters of police forces in England and Wales recorded their highest ever levels of ‘hate crime’ in the three months after last June’s EU referendum vote. Data has been collected in this way since June 2012.
Yet these figures are pretty meaningless as they are merely a measure of what is reported. In other words, there has not yet been any evidence of an increase in prosecutions for hate crime.
A hate crime is defined as “any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic”.
Perception is the “defining factor” according to the police guidance and “the victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception.”
The Crown Prosecution Service says that any crime that involves “ill-will, ill-feeling, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment, or dislike” due to some “personal characteristic” could be a hate crime.
So, there might be no basis for the victim to have such a perception but, regardless of that, if a ‘victim’ makes such a claim then the police are obliged to record it. It is given a higher priority for investigation and the punishment to the culprit can reflect the aggravated nature of the offence.
But crime is crime. The basis for the punishment should be for the crime itself – not the thinking that motivated it – no matter how obnoxious that thinking might be. A judge might properly take into account a lack of remorse from the offender or the risk that they will offend again. The police may well exercise common sense in
investigating one crime with higher priority than another – due to it being particularly unpleasant or having wider implications for public order. But it is unclear as to how this special category of “hate crime” really helps. It hampers the police by leaving them ticking boxes.
What is far worse is police time taken up with “hate incidents”. Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, must surely be aware of how the present rules are open to the most absurd abuses. After all, she was reported as being responsible for such an incident after making a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October. She had talked about immigrants “taking jobs British people could do”. Professor Joshua Silver, an Oxford University astrophysicist, objected to a draft of this speech which he read after it had been delivered (extraordinarily, he didn’t actually hear the speech) and decided to contact West Midlands Police – whose officers duly recorded it under Home Office guidelines as a hate incident.
Then last week we heard that Jim Walker, a volunteer with the Carnforth Station Trust, was banned from winding a famous railway station clock by the charity he was associated with after a member of the public threatened to report him for hate crime having overheard him allegedly speculating that some of the “child refugees” from Calais looked over the age of 18.
In recent months there has been a political motive in hyping the “hate crime” figures by those wishing to discredit the Brexit referendum result. From those who spout this nonsense, there is usually some feeble caveat about how most people who voted Leave probably do not condone racist inspired violence etc – but the smear of guilt by association is left hanging in the air.
There is a hate crime industry emerging. Last year at the Grange City Hotel in central London there was a Tackling Hate Crime Conference where assorted police officers, academics and council officials were sent by their bosses at a cost of between £359 and £575 for the one-day event.
We now have High Crime Co-ordinators and Hate Crime Community Support
Officers. There is a Hate Crime Awareness Week. There are university centres for “Hate Crime Studies”. All of this is about encouraging more reporting of ‘hate crimes’. But is it really the most effective way of defeating crime – regardless of the sex, race, religion or sexual orientation of the culprit or victim? Shouldn’t the police be getting on with the task of arresting racist thugs rather than pontificating about the EU referendum in conferences at plush hotels?
Britain is a tolerant, freedom loving, self-confident, outward looking nation. The Brexit vote reflected that. It is time this was accepted and celebrated. The main prejudice against those who voted for Brexit which I have come across has been against working class voters accused of being too stupid to understand what voting to leave the EU would mean. Let’s stop denigrating the motives of the British people with dodgy statistics and absurd definitions. Let’s also make sure the police
tackle real crime rather than thought crime.
