UK government admits the obvious: Free countries shouldn’t police legal speech

With an act designated as “non-crime,” you might reasonably expect the role for law enforcement to be quite limited. No crime means no cops…right? For years, though, the United Kingdom has allowed a system of police intervention and record-keeping over “non-crime hate incidents” — including legal speech — to flourish. But new Home Office guidance intends to “prevent police from recording lawful free speech.” 

Will this signal a new step forward for the UK? It’s complicated.

Some background: The practice of police recording non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) started as a way to monitor hateful behavior before it crossed into illegal territory. Police would log complaints of perceived hateful but legal acts, which in recent years have often just been social media posts — and sometimes targets of those complaints were logged as offenders without even being told. 

Such a system blurs the line between protected and unprotected speech, chills speakers who would rather not be recorded in a government database for entirely legal expression, and recklessly invites police to referee verbal or written disputes. But that hasn’t stopped the growth of NCHIs. In the past decade or so, police departments across the UK have recorded tens of thousands of NCHIs. About 30,000 alone were recorded between 2022-2025. 

Things have gone off the rails. And the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing admit it. In their review of NCHI enforcement, they acknowledge:

In some high-profile NCHI cases, policing has not struck this balance effectively. Disproportionate responses have left individuals feeling criminalised for engaging in lawful debate, prompting criticism that police are becoming involved in matters that should not be for the police to deal with. 

The report also states that using terms such as “victim” and “suspect” when recording non-crimes contributed to the impression that targets of NCHI recordings were, well, criminals.

These police groups have issued a new set of recommendations regarding NCHIs, which the UK government has said they are accepting. NCHIs “are to be scrapped,” the government said in its press release, admitting that the system simply does not work. Police are not equipped — nor should they be — to respond to complaints concerning the millions of social media posts circulated each and every day, which any citizen may personally find hateful.

So, what’s actually changing? 

The Home Office is revising its definition of “incident” to heighten the threshold for when police must record an act reported to them. Previously, police took action over “a single distinct event or occurrence” that “disturbs an individual, group or community’s quality of life or causes them concern.” Disturbs? Causes concern? With language this broad, it’s no mystery why police recorded tens of thousands of complaints. 

Going forward, “incident” is defined as “a single distinct event or occurrence which may be relevant to policing for preventing or solving crime, safeguarding individuals or communities or fulfilling other statutory policing purposes.” 

This is certainly an improved and narrower definition, and it more closely ties police responsibilities to actual criminal activity. But there are still reasons to question how meaningful the change will be, in part because of the new reliance on the term “anti-social behaviour” (ASB).

Now, “where a report meets the threshold of an incident…it should be recorded as anti-social behaviour” and “with a prejudice qualifier added.” The definition of ASB includes “[c]onduct that has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.” While the tighter definition of “incident” will hopefully limit how many reports get logged as an ASB, the vagueness of the concepts of “alarm or distress” opens the door for some of the same problems present in the prior form of NCHI policing. 

“Making ASB the designated opening code category for incidents perceived to be motivated by hate or hostility would give forces a greater ability to search command-and-control systems, to collate data and identify repeat incidents,” the police groups’ report asserts. 

All in all, there are improvements here, including the much-welcomed admission from the government that this system is not sustainable or desirable, but there are still reasons to be wary. And while this may help address police involvement over legal speech, don’t forget that the UK criminalizes a wide range of speech just because it’s offensive. Take the Communications Act 2003, which criminalizes “grossly offensive” or “indecent” speech, or the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which targets words that “cause distress or anxiety.”

Ultimately, authorities may still very well have existing reasons to investigate upsetting speech, NCHI or no. 

And while the First Amendment protects Americans’ right to engage in speech that some might perceive as offensive or upsetting, Americans should be wary of quasi-NCHI systems brewing here at home. It isn’t just the UK that’s policed legal tweets. For one, “Bias Response Hotlines” have emerged in U.S. cities and states, mirroring the function of NCHIs with U.S. police reporting bias incidents that have not met the threshold of criminal behavior. 

But in even more disturbing developments, police showed up to Americans’ homes to investigate them — and even arrest them. In January, Miami Beach police appeared at the door of U.S. Army veteran Raquel Pacheco to question her about her social media posts accusing Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner of being anti-LGBTQ and anti-Palestinian. Police claimed they were just there “to have a conversation” — but in a free country, you shouldn’t have to chat with police over your protected speech.

And FIRE is representing Larry Bushart, a retired police officer who recently spent a shocking 37 days in jail on a $2 million bond he couldn’t afford, all because of a meme quoting the president. Perry County police hauled Bushart away on spurious accusations of threats after he posted a meme about Charlie Kirk’s killing that quoted Donald Trump’s response to a different shooting, “We have to get over it.” 

Either in the U.S. or the UK, there is no role for police when it comes to legal speech. That’s the whole point of protected speech. Let’s keep it that way.