Police officers will not record “frivolous” allegations of offensive speech in a shake-up of how crimes are logged by forces.
Policing minister Chris Philp said officers are “not the thought police” and being rude or insulting is not a “police matter” as he announced the Government plans, which will come into force next month. The reforms to so-called Home Office counting rules on how police record reported incidents are said to be in a bid to cut “unnecessary red tape” and free up officers to spend more time investigating crime.
In a speech at the Law Society of England and Wales offices in central London on Thursday, Mr Philp said: “We’re going to make clear that frivolous allegations of malicious communications should not be recorded as a criminal offence unless the criminal threshold has clearly been met. We don’t think that being rude or insulting is a police matter.
“Officers are not the thought police and where something is reported that doesn’t meet the criminal threshold, we don’t want that to be investigated or reported as a crime. We don’t want to waste police time on that kind of thing.”
Earlier the minister admitted there was more that could be done to follow up on reported crimes but the bureaucracy involved in recording certain incidents was “wasting” police time. The move follows recommendations from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) which said a review of productivity found 443,000 officer hours are spent filling in forms and dealing with unnecessary administrative tasks, equivalent to attending 220,000 domestic abuse incidents or 270,000 burglaries.
The Home Office said the changes will save police time by no longer recording cases of messages that may offend someone or where a public disturbance occurred but has been resolved. But this will require sign-off by a supervisor, such as a police sergeant.
Officers should be on the streets investigating crimes such as burglary rather than investigating comments made online, the department said. Police will also be able to consider if such issues should be dealt with by social media companies instead.
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Another change will see reported crimes for a single incident consistently recorded under the main offence, rather than as multiple entries on a database that effectively re-records the same case. But the Home Office insisted police will continue to pursue all offences involved. The reforms will also make it easier to cancel the recording of a crime where there is enough evidence that there was not one committed, but require the appropriate sign-off, the department said.
Speaking for the first time since taking on the role of new NPCC chairman, Gavin Stephenson said: “Police officers must be totally focused on keeping people safe and ensuring they feel safe. We want to provide the best possible policing to the public and the work of the police productivity review is aimed at removing barriers and improving effectiveness. Any move to free up our front line to serve our communities is welcome.”
