Government to overhaul non-crime hate incident rules after review

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. Police guidance on the recording of NCHIs was first published in 2005, following recommendations by an inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in a racist attack in 1993. They were originally intended to help forces gathe