The guidance states that if 'the victim or any other person perceives that the incident was motivated wholly or partially by hostility, it should be recorded and flagged as a non-crime hate incident'. In one example given in the guidance, a disabled child claims to have been called a derogatory name by another school pupil. The advice for this example is that 'police should record the incident'

Remember that "permanent record" your teachers always threatened you with? This sounds like one.

"Wrong! Do it again! How will you get any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

Simple, Rad. You put another brick in the wall.

Guidance published by the College of Policing in October advises police to record 'hate' incidents even when they are not sufficient to warrant criminal charges. ... The advice for this example is that 'police should record the incident'

Police? Aren't we defunding them?

This is an example of using the police for something for which they don't need to be used and are not specifically trained or equipped to do. This kind of unnecessary use stretches the police thin and creates unnecessary animosity between the police and the community.

The police to these folks are just another boogeyman, useful for frightening people into doing what you want them to do. "Eat your vegetables or I'll feed you to the boogeyman."

"to claim that that child has shown prejudice or 'hostility' based on race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender."

So, it's OK if Mean Kids mock or even beat up someone because she prefers classical music to rock or rap, but not for any of the above-listed reasons. Category membership is protected, not individuality.

Category membership is protected, not individuality. ~ David Foster at December 7, 2020 6:21 AM

That's the collectivist mindset. The individual must be subordinated to the whole.

" 'the consequence of this is that Miss B is inhibited from expressing her views freely within school and from contributing to important class debates on controversial issues'."

I thought that was the point.

"That's the collectivist mindset. The individual must be subordinated to the whole."
I dunno. There may be a nuance here. Kids are worth some money to the state - student funding, future taxpayers, voters. Keeping them compliant helps ensure those benefits keep rolling.

Seattle is taking a different tack. City Journal has a couple articles about the Emerald City. "Burn it Down" is a good read (Rufo, 11/21/2020). The city’s political establishment has joined the campaign to “deconstruct justice.” It's another urban planner fetish like light rail or smart growth. Coming to a city near you.
But the article more to your point is
https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-policymakers-untouchables-misdemeanor-crime

"In October, the Seattle City Council floated legislation to provide an exemption from prosecution for misdemeanor crimes for any citizen who suffers from poverty, homelessness, addiction, or mental illness."
These are throw-away people. Never gonna be taxpayers or voters. But they do put the fear into political constituencies. This too is becoming an urban trend.

City Journal has a couple articles about the Emerald City. ~ Spiderfall at December 7, 2020 8:39 AM

Read both of those when they came out. This is just more "poverty causes crime" social justice that says the poor are not responsible for their crimes since "society is to blame" and "capitalism causes poverty."

The utopian society they hope to establish on the ashes of Western civilization will not be as utopian as they think. Not every petty thief is Jean Valjean trying to feed his family.

We may have to experience the dystopia of socialism before anyone realizes that the naysayers to social justice theories were right. It's easy to say the we won't become Venezuela because "we'll do it right this time," but not so easy to implement their "right" kind of socialism.

They imagine their socialist utopia will be Norway or Denmark, but it will be Venezuela. Only after the populace is repeatedly beaten down will it become compliant and quasi-productive (a la Communist China or the Soviet Union). Even then, the bulk of innovation efforts will be spent in getting around government rules, not in creating innovative products for the marketplace, not in increasing the overall wealth of society.

The secret to creating a dynamic and innovative society is to free the individual, not to socialize him. That means social conservatives may have to accept secularism and gay marriage while liberals may have to accept that free speech includes offensive speech and both of them may have to realize that being offended is a direct result of living in a world with other people in it.*

* Hat tip to Fran Lebowitz: "Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house."

The normal way kids handle insults is 1) coming back with a wittier response, 2) fighting, 3) sabotage. Leave them alone to grow up FFS.
Notice how being offended is defined. You are not allowed to be offended by abortion, by welfare cheats, by rioting, by insults to white people (even calls for genocide of whites), only insults based on protected status. Are you free to call a minority person a dick or looney-(ie not a racial insult)? Can you say your momma so fat jokes? Or say that joe is a few bricks short of a load? I suppose chinese are white for these purposes.
You also have people who are over the top with their accusations. Naming Covid 19 the "wuhan flu" or "kung flu" was called racist --but that is where it came from. Someone can be "offended" by your hair style of t-shirt. There is no limit to it.

> Momma so fat

That boy's not got both oars in the water. …Boy's a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

David, leaving aside open, blatant rudeness (which, of course, should never be accepted), I like to say that there's bad snobbery and then there's good snobbery. Bad snobbery is when you look for an excuse to think of someone as inferior - to build up your self-image, naturally. Even if you don't say anything out loud. (Shunning, of course, IS rude if you have to see that person regularly.) Good snobbery is refusing to pretend that all subjects or behaviors are equal. E.g., watching the movie version is NOT as good as reading the book, even when they end the same way, because you can't put thinking on the screen, for starters.

"It's amazing that adults don't see -- assuming there was actually positive intent behind this -- all the ways that this can go wrong, starting with false accusations."

Actually, I think the reason that many adults don't see this is because they think it will only be used by people like them against the "other."

To quote what Martin Niemoeller said: ". . . then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me"

I guess this is what happens when some ignore the lessons from history - they repeat it.