Preparing for the worst
by Shonagh Dillon, Artillery Row:
How gender critical commentators are preparing for the impact of the Hate Crime and Public Order Act.
Much has been written about the Scottish Government’s new Hate Crime Act, which was timed perfectly to come into force on April Fool’s Day 2024. The consequences of this vaguely drafted Act has been dissected and commented on by legal experts and social media commentators across the world.
Despite those in favour of the Act desperately trying to convince the rest of us that because the threshold for criminal conviction is high there is nothing for anyone, particularly women, to worry about, the impact of the new legislation has already had far reaching consequences.
At the point of writing this, Scotland is 2 ½ days into operating the new law, and the police have had to set up a special taskforce to deal with nearly 4,000 hate crime reports. Given that Police Scotland have stated they respond to a domestic abuse call out every eight minutes, and are now having to respond to 60 perceived hate crime’s every hour, one wonders if their forced re-direction of resources will impact on the many women who are hated by the men who live with them.
When JK Rowling dared the police to arrest her, many women were grateful for her activism, which resulted in a clear message from the police that misgendering is not a hate crime. But despite this brave act of defiance by Rowling, the chilling effect of the Act will not be quite as swift to resolve, because the punishment always resides in the process.
The law is written in a way that gives a monopoly of victimhood on every complainant’s perception of “hate”, and even if a crime hasn’t been committed, the police have stated they will record all non-crime hate incidents (NHIC) on their vulnerable persons database. True to their word they have already logged an NHIC against the Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), Murdo Fraser, but in decisions that appear to change daily Police Scotland have confirmed they won’t be recording one against Rowling. At this stage who knows or can trust what on earth the police’s policy and procedure is?
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