Allegations of hate speech made against 120,000 people have been logged by police, prompting criticism that they have diverted attention from forces tackling other priorities, such as violent crime.
Campaigners added that logging “non-crime hate incidents”, even after police had decided that what had been said or posted online had broken no laws, had a “chilling effect” on free speech.
In response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, none of the 43 police forces in England and Wales could cite any crime that had been prevented and 20 said that they did not have a system to monitor the effectiveness of recording the claims.
Read article: Hate speech records are having ‘chilling effect’ on free speech
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