Police commissioners have announced the death of the non-crime hate incident (NCHI), declaring them “not fit for purpose”. This is unsurprising, given the courts found NCHIs unlawful as long ago as 2021 — although policing pretended not to notice. The Home Office will now hope this announcement turns the page on controversial arrests over social media spats. Sadly, it won’t, due to a combination of risk aversion, creaky legislation and overly-politicised police accountability.

NCHIs were intended as an administrative solution to a recommendation made by the Macpherson Inquiry in 1999, recommending police monitor behaviour perceived to be racist but falling short of criminality. The spirit of Macpherson lives on in the Online Safety Act, with its talk of “lawful but harmful” activity. Which is to say: what is the role of the state in arbitrating lawful behaviour of which it doesn’t approve? Critics of NCHIs would argue the answer is none.

The quango-like College of Policing originally created the practice of NCHIs. Established in 2014 as part of then-Home Secretary Theresa May’s disastrous police reform programme, the college has long been in thrall to progressive politics. What’s more, the College is acutely aware of its status as a bête noire for the political Right, many of whom seek nothing less than its abolition. The College is now like the Titanic, with NCHIs only the tip of the free speech and culture war icebergs.

But the issue goes far deeper than the recording of “questionable behaviour” of the sort which might end up being disclosed on a vetting check for employment. Most of the high-profile cases concerning criminalisation of opinion on social media aren’t due to NCHIs, instead falling under the creaky, pre-internet 1986 Public Order Act. The Act makes “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or display of written material, with intent or likelihood to stir up racial hatred” a specific offence. In 1986, this was intended to address hard copy race-hate material distributed by neo-Nazi groups. Four decades later, it’s being applied to tweets.

Police are also bound by Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which includes distributing material which is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” over a public electronic communications network. That includes memes sent over WhatsApp, as five former police officers discovered when they received suspended prison sentences two years ago for sending racist jokes in a private group. The cases of the journalist Allison Pearson, Lucy Connolly and former Royal Marine Jamie Michael had nothing to do with NCHIs: they were state overreach into freedom of speech issues using criminal law.

Sceptics might therefore be forgiven for seeing this latest announcement as a red herring. After all, police policy and procedure concerning the recording of hate crimes remain unchanged. Opaque governance structures including activists, quangos, NGOs and other interested parties are another piece of the cat’s cradle that is police decision-making. Take the recent furore about the integrity of West Midlands Police’s handling of the Maccabi Tel Aviv game, which speaks to concerns over whether decisions are really made “without fear or favour”. For many members of the progressive administrative class, the mindset behind NCHIs appears to advocate censoriousness for the public good — as the Online Safety Act and moves to establish a legal definition of Islamophobia amply demonstrate.

Police chiefs must now manage these changes, as policy percolates to the frontline. Operational officers must be robustly supported rather than second-guessed by agenda-driven activists or staff associations. And, as long as progressive bastions such as the College of Policing wield influence over senior cops, sceptics are right to not rejoice too soon over the timely death of the little-loved NCHI.