The Metropolitan police has been lauded in some quarters for deciding that it will no longer investigate so-called non-crime hate incidents, in order to allow officers to “focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations”. Against the context of headlines describing the Met as the “thought police”, something was bound to give. “Goodbye and good riddance to ‘non-crime’” was one joyful take in the Spectator.

But make no mistake: this is a shortsighted, premature announcement. It threatens the victim-led approach to policing that resulted from the Macpherson inquiry, which followed the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and egregious police failures. It’s bad for society, for vulnerable people in society and for policing.

The bar for illegal hate is high in the UK, and rightly so. Not every incident reported to the police is a crime, but it is right that people feel safe – especially when at their most vulnerable – and are encouraged to report what has happened. It is sensible that harm can be identified and extremism prevented. Too often in the debate about these non-crime incidents – bogged down in the trenches of the culture wars – the view of those they are there meant to protect is absent.

There are three principal ways in which police response to non-crime hate incidents benefits both the police and society. First, they........

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