- The U.K. is scrapping “non-crime hate incidents” and will instead classify many reports as anti-social behavior to reduce police involvement in "lawful free speech."
- British officials say police have spent too much time recording legal but offensive speech, which they believe has damaged public trust.
- Even with the change, police will still collect and store reports about non-criminal behavior if they believe it could help monitor tensions or prevent future crime.
The United Kingdom has asked police to “stop recording everyday rows and online spats.” To prove they mean it, the government will be scrapping “non-crime hate incidents,” per a Tuesday announcement.
However, the British government will still provide a way to report non-crimes. Moving forward, they will be recorded by police as “anti-social behavior.”
Since 2014, when the U.K. began monitoring non-crime hate incidents, 43 police forces in England recorded a combined 133,000 incidents, averaging 13,000 a year.
In the past decade, British police have made a plethora of arrests over social media posts, saying they caused viewers emotional distress. In one instance from last September, British police detained comedian Graham Linehan for several X posts that mentioned transgender people. Police gave him a single bail condition: stay off X.
“Non-crime hate incident: Any incident where a crime has not been committed, but where it is perceived by the reporting person or any other person that the incident was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on: religion, sexual orientation, disability (including learning disability), gender or gender expression.
— U.K.'s College of Policing
Using law enforcement to monitor and make arrests over “hate speech” has “eroded public trust,” an assistant chief constable for the U.K.’s College of Policing said in a statement following Tuesday’s announcement.
The U.K.’s Secretary of State for the Home Department, Shabana Mahmood, said, “Under these reforms, forces will no longer be policing perfectly legal tweets. Instead, they will be doing what they do best: patrolling our streets, catching criminals and keeping communities safe.”
However, the official March 2026 review concludes: Policing hate and hostility “must continue ... so that they (police) can gather vital information and intelligence to monitor community tension, prevent crime and keep communities and individuals safe.”
Data on individuals will still be recorded and disclosure rules remain unchained.
A game of semantics
The review had two goals: 1) Keep monitoring communities and policing speech that “may lead to genuine harm and risk in communities.” 2) Report fewer instances of “lawful free speech.”
What is “lawful free speech”? College of Policing officials said a definition is difficult: “The boundaries between what is legitimate free speech, even where it is offensive, and what requires police intervention are not always clear or absolute. They depend on context, intent and impact.”
But to report fewer instances of it, the U.K. said they would narrow the scope of some definitions.
Previously, “incident” was defined broadly as “a single distinct event or occurrence which disturbs an individual, group or community’s quality of life or causes them concern.”
A new definition will be tied more closely to “core police work.”
How have these non-crime hate incidents been recorded?
The U.K. has a tip line where residents can report what they deem non-crime hate incidents.
A caller with the government will reach out to the reporter for an interview and determine in a 14-minute call if the issue requires police involvement.
“They are expected to take a victim-focused approach, treating the caller with empathy and taking their concerns seriously,” the review said. “For many call takers, concern about missing a crime means they default to recording rather than not recording an NCHI.”
Many times, the reports are put into a Records Management System (RMS), which “allow for better data analysis.” However, in some police departments, the RMS “automatically assigns these incidents a crime status” and attaches labels like “suspect” and “victim” to the participants.
“This is inappropriate for a non-crime matter,” the National Police Chief’s Council wrote.
If the U.K. concludes based on the interview that no police action is needed, the incident is closed and the record remains in the government’s system. If other calls are made involving the same alleged perpetrator, the call log is linked and the information reassessed.
To reduce over-policing reported “hate speech,” the U.K. is asking police forces to make sure non-crime incidents are not recorded as crimes in their systems.