The Hate Crime laws continue to dominate the debate on our Letters Pages.
Yesterday there was controversy over the use of Non-Crime Hate Incidents after Tory MSP Murdo Fraser accused Police Scotland of political bias.
Today one of our readers bemoans the pressure put on the police by the Scottish Government.
Ian McNair of Cellardyke writes:
"Humza Yousaf claimed Scotland was on a "rising tide" of hate crime despite there being a fall in hate crime according to his Government's statistics. If he'd applied his own logic when addressing drug deaths he would have said we had turned a point last year.
Sadly and predictably, with the introduction of his Hate Crime Bill he has created a tsunami of reported hate crime all of which Police Scotland is committed to investigate. With thousands of complaints coming in each day this is a ridiculous strain to put on our constrained police resources.
Have we learned nothing from Covid which saw us divert police resources to interview grannies having tea in their back gardens, policing social distancing and other such trivia that we now know was a waste of time and resources? The public deserve better with police priorities directed to serious criminal activities like teachers getting assaulted in classrooms, burglaries, car theft, sexual assaults, drug dealing, shoplifting, assaults and cyber crime.
Mr Yousaf has put our constrained police force in an entirely-predictable invidious position to the public's detriment."
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