Crime, or how the the establishment react to it, is a strange thing. When it rises the authorities tend to make excuses, when it falls they gloat and take the credit.
Or, at least they do with most forms of crime. Not so called hate crimes though, they seemingly operate in reverse to normal rules.
Recently released figures have shown an increase in hate crimes in the South West as a whole, and police are almost positively gloating over it.
DCI Dave McCallum of Avon and Somerset police reacts to a rise in hate crime by saying "My overall assessment is that we are making some good strides. We have focused both on trying to encourage reporting, because we know all sorts of hate crimes are severely under-reported, as well as detection when they are reported".
If we're left in any doubt, Wiltshire saw the number of hate crimes drop significantly.
Instead of celebrating that fact, we get a Superintendent Sarah Bodell saying "Wiltshire Police has the second lowest volume of reports of hate crimes compared to other similar forces and we recognise that this may be due to under reporting"
"There are many possible reasons that victims choose not to report such incidents but as a force we are working closely with our partner agencies to engage with our communities and discuss concerns or problems that they have".
If hate crime rises it seems to be considered a good thing, it means more people are reporting it, hate is proven.
If it goes down then it's a bad thing, it means not enough people are reporting it, the hate officialdom has decided is there is going undetected.
Would the same rhetoric be said of say burglary, or shoplifting?
Whichever way the figures go when it comes to hate crime, officialdom wants its proof that we're a hate filled population, that minority is always discriminated against and hated.
There's the distinct feeling of drumming up business. The decision has been taken that hatred is everywhere, it just needs sniffing out, in any incident where the victim is a minority in any way then it must be a hate crime somewhere.
Officialdom is so obsessed with the idea of hate crimes that they are treated in reverse to other crimes - if the figures rise it is welcomed as good policing, if they fall then efforts must be taken to increase the numbers.
"Where can Communists be found? Everywhere" - from a pamphlet distributed by the USA's Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950's.
Only the word Communists needs changing to make it relevant to today.
Hate is everywhere, if we can't find it then it's because it hides well, people are scared to report it, we must try harder.
Guilt is already decided, now the guilty must be found.
By many peoples standards that is not justice, that is the recipe for a modern witch hunt and a self fulfilling prophecy designed to ram home officialdoms pronouncement that hate is everywhere.
Crime, or how the the establishment react to it, is a strange thing. When it rises the authorities tend to make excuses, when it falls they gloat and take the credit.
