Taking action over hurt feelings is not the job of the police, the Home Secretary has said.
Setting out her “ethos for common sense policing”, The Rt Hon Suella Braverman KC MP told The Public Safety Foundation that officers must “focus on fighting crime”, not pursuing wokery.
In March, the Government introduced a new code of practice on non-crime hate incidents (NCHI) which makes clear that airing “strongly held views” does not, by itself, “amount to a criminal offence”.
Priorities
The Home Secretary said the “public want to see the police focussed on the highest harm crimes” such as violence, drugs and antisocial behaviour. “By contrast”, she continued, “the public do not want to see the police turning up to residential addresses to police bad jokes on Twitter.”
criminal justice not social justice
Mrs Braverman explained that the policing she believes in “isn’t riven with political correctness”, but pursues “good old fashioned criminal justice rather than social justice”.
She also said that police resources must be “deployed on the things that matter most to the public. It’s with this sentiment in mind that I recently introduced a new code of practice on non-crime hate incidents.”
She continued: “The new code makes clear that personal data should only be recorded if there is a real risk of significant harm and stresses the importance of giving proper weight to freedom of expression.”
Curbing freedom of expression is not the job of our police. Suella Braverman KC MP
Legitimate
In 2021, the Court of Appeal backed Harry Miller who had argued that NCHI measures at the time unlawfully interfered with free speech. Police had previously logged Miller’s personal details in a NCHI record after receiving a complaint about a ‘transphobic’ tweet.
The code, which strengthens interim College of Policing measures introduced after Miller’s court victory, states that consideration must be given to the legitimate boundaries of debate on “important social or political issues where there is likely to be strong differences of opinion”.
These include the expression of opinions on same-sex marriage and religion, which have specific legal protections campaigned for by The Christian Institute.
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