The UK government is to change when police forces in England and Wales record non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), in a bid to end the policing of “everyday arguments”.
New Home Office guidance will say that forces should only log incidents that are potentially “relevant to policing”.
It comes after a review by police chiefs found the system, developed in the mid-2000s, had increasingly seen officers drawn into policing debates on social media.
However the Conservatives say the move from Labour ministers does not go far enough, calling it “simply a rebrand”.
NCHIs are recorded when police receive a report perceived by the caller to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards people with certain characteristics, such as race or gender, but which does not meet the bar for prosecution under hate crime laws.
Though they are not crimes, NCHIs stay on police records and can be disclosed during enhanced background checks when applying for certain jobs.
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The review, conducted alongside the College of Policing, said that officers were increasingly being drawn into “policing the online space” and existing guidance on recording them, dating from 2011, should be redrawn.
It found that around 30,000 NCHIs had been recorded by forces between 2022 and 2025, with spikes around the time of “major events, such as the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023”.
Under the proposed update, incidents would only now be recorded if they “may be relevant to policing for preventing or solving crime, safeguarding individuals or communities or fulfilling other statutory policing purposes”.
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The Home Office said it had accepted all the recommendations of the review, adding that the move was aimed at ending “the policing of everyday arguments”.
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