The U.K. Authorities Are Policing Online Spats Instead Of Serious Crime

According to the new head of the U.K. Police Federation, police are too busy grappling with petty social media spats to deal with serious crimes.  John Apter said authorities on the street have a “desperation to do the job and very often they can’t because their hands are tied”.

Apter represents 120,000 rank-and-file officers.

After years of focus on encouraging “hate crime” reports for offensive comments and cyber crime, he specified that the digital policing can come at the expense of traditional police work.

Apter said:

I think police time can be better spent and it makes a mockery when we are so stretched. You can’t treat society like that and you can’t treat the police as political footballs. We need to have a sensible debate with politicians, with society and with the public about exactly what they want their police to do.

Police forces have long been actively encourage citizens to report “hate crimes” in past years – online and off – with hundreds of officers dedicated to the area. “Hate crimes”, however, are based on feelings, thoughts and can often be subjective in nature.

Apter, who has served with the Hampshire police force for 26 years, called out the surge in real-world, violent crimes across London, stating that a physical act of intrusion like burglary “is one of the most… horrible crimes… a householder can go through… People can sometimes wait days for a police response”.

Notably, London mayor Sadiq Khan promised to set up a police “online hate crime hub” to work in “partnership with social media providers” to criminalize trolls who target their insults based on race and other identifying factors.

Official police guidelines for “hate crimes” include “hostility” – and can be vague in their definitions of what exactly constitutes one.

A “hate crime” only needs to be “perceived” by the victim and the Crown Prosecution Service detailed “there is no need for evidence to prove the aggravating element” of it to be logged as a “hate incident”.

In 2016, Sadiq Khan’s office revealed it was spending £1,730,726 of taxpayers’ money policing speech online…

As their culture and societies are defiled before them, with crime going uncharged and violent crime rates soaring, the emphasis on policing comments online is not only wholly stupid – it’s abhorrently dangerous.

Apter already hit the nail on the head last month – at the rate things are going, the failure to suppress and address crime will fall squarely on the shoulders of ordinary citizens, who will suffer and be impacted the most, helpless to do anything to combat it.