In my book, The Indispensable Right, I discuss how free speech is in a free fall in Great Britain, where officials continue to crack down on an ever-widening array of viewpoints. Some of these actions are designated as “non-crime hate” but are still the subject of law enforcement actions. According to the Daily Mail, they now include children who have been pulled in for calling other children schoolyard names like “retard” or saying that other children smell “like fish.”
According to the Daily Mail:
“A nine-year-old child is among the youngsters being probed by police over hate incidents… Officers recorded incidents against the child, who called a fellow primary school pupil a ‘retard’, and against two schoolgirls who said another student smelled ‘like fish.’ The youngsters were among multiple cases of children being recorded as having committed non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), The Times discovered through freedom of information requests to police forces.”
“Non-crime hate” was introduced in 2014 as part of the Hate Crime Operational Guidelines.
It is chilling in its ambiguity and scope. It only requires the perception of either a victim or a third party that a statement is motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or transgender identity.
The HCOG stresses, “The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required.”
That guarantees the maximal level of investigation and documentation of speech incidents. The chilling effect on free speech is glacial.
For years, I have been writing about the decline of free speech in the United Kingdom and the steady stream of arrests. A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement:
“I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
Great Britain is now turning, it appears, to their children in speech crackdowns. Schoolyard taunts can be investigated by officers. The impact on both parents and children will obviously be immense. It adds a coercive element to speech laws. Given the subjective and vague standard, the response is to self-censor to avoid any such accusations. Raising children in such an environment will only erode free speech values. Indeed, it fosters the type of speech-phobic generation that many activists may welcome. Speech is viewed as dangerous and subject to continual monitoring by the state.
Stopping some kid from using a playground taunt will do little to instill mutual respect, but it will instill fear over how the state may respond to your words. It is a lesson that many in the free speech community may relish but one that most citizens should reject. “Non-crime hate” investigations are meant to maintain a constant sense of oversight and monitoring of speech, even with our children.
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Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
