Law enforcement in Scotland has reportedly been flooded with “hate speech” reports after the country adopted a law aiming to address so-called offensive speech.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 which criminalizes any speech used to “stir up hatred” toward specific communities, was recently enacted by the nation. Since the law went into effect, police departments have claimed that they “can’t cope” with the approximately 8,000 reports of hate speech they have received.
The legislation considers individuals who adopt a transgender identity a “protected” class from hate crimes. The law does not, however, protect women against misogyny.
According to the Telegraph, if the trend continues, the total number of hate crime incident reports will surpass the number of all other crimes reported annually, which is approximately 416,000.
The chairman of the Scottish Police Federation David Threadgold said that the department has needed to increase manpower and overtime hours to cope with the number of reports it has received since the law was enacted.
“Police Scotland have gone public and said that on every occasion, reports of hate crime will be investigated,” he said. “That creates a situation where we simply cannot cope at the moment. Officers have been brought back in to do overtime shifts and the management of that is simply unsustainable.”
“The bottom line is, should this demand remain, the police service will have to deal with it but that will clearly impact on other areas of policing,” he added.
Brietbart additionally reported that Scottish police have already grappled with the highest number of drug-related deaths per capita in Europe. Threadgold suggested that “the law was being [‘weaponized’] by the public in order to settle personal grudges against fellow citizens or to wage political feuds,” according to the outlet. Additionally, because the law enforcement agency has committed to investigating every hate crime report, it has allegedly failed to solve a mounting number of other crimes, including shoplifting, vehicle thefts, and sexual assaults.
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
