What specific behaviours (threats, harassment, incitement, hate speech) make up the bulk of arrests under sections 127 and 1 in recent years?
Executive summary
Recent reporting and freedom-of-information returns show police activity under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 has surged to roughly 12,000 arrests in 2023, but publicly available material does not contain a centrally published, reliable breakdown by behaviour; the offences swept up under these laws are described in reporting as a mix of grossly offensive or indecent communications, menacing or threatening messages, persistently abusive use of networks, and a smaller—but politically salient—set of hoax or emergency-service-targeted communications [1] [2] [3]. Legal and civil‑liberties critics stress that most arrests do not lead to convictions—fewer than 10% of those arrested in 2023 were convicted—so arrest figures overstate the scale of proven criminal behaviour [1] [4].
1. What the statutes criminalise and how reporting translates that into arrests
Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act criminalises sending messages that are indecent or grossly offensive, while section 127 of the Communications Act targets messages which are obscene or menacing or the persistent misuse of public electronic communications networks; analysts and parliamentary speakers summarise arrests under both laws as covering offensive social-media posts, threats, harassment and persistent abusive contact [2] [1]. Freedom of information journalism compiled by The Times and cited across sources treats those statutory descriptions as the operational categories police use when recording arrests, and journalists explicitly connected the bulk of the recorded arrests to social media and online comment [2] [3].
2. The behaviours reported most often in FOI-driven coverage
The FOI-driven story that produced the 12,183 figure frames the arrests largely around offensive online speech and social-media posts—posts judged by complainants or police as grossly offensive, menacing or indecent—rather than a wave of violent conspiracies; independent debunking and international monitors repeat that social‑media commentary and similar online messages are the dominant descriptions in the dataset journalists obtained [2] [5] [3]. Reporting also notes categories that sit outside mere insult: menacing communications (threats), persistent harassment through repeated messages, and targeted hoax calls or false emergency reports, which prosecutors sometimes charge under the same or related communication offences [1] [5].
3. What prosecutions and convictions reveal about substance vs. volume
Although arrests climbed sharply, conviction and sentencing numbers have fallen over the decade, indicating many cases are discontinued, resolved out of court, or lack evidence—Ministry of Justice and reporting data put convicted and sentenced persons at roughly 1,119 in 2023 compared with thousands arrested, and commentators cite “evidential difficulties” and victims declining to proceed as common reasons for the gap [1] [4] [6]. This divergence implies that the “bulk” of arrests are for communications that are contested, ambiguous, or difficult to prove as criminal (for example offensive but not threatening), rather than clear-cut criminal threats or organized incitement that routinely result in conviction [2] [4].
4. Competing narratives, agendas and data limits
Civil‑liberties groups use the arrest statistics to argue the laws are being used to police speech and chill legitimate expression, while police and some MPs point to the statutory need to address menacing messages and harmful hoaxes; the FOI reporting itself is partial—data was collated from a subset of forces and the Government does not publish arrest figures by specific offence type—so neither side can claim a fully representative behavioural breakdown from centrally held statistics [2] [1]. Media outlets that amplified the 12,000 figure drove political and international comparisons that sometimes mask these methodological limits, and fact-checkers note the statistic’s accuracy for the FOI sample but also stress missing context about outcomes and offence categories [7] [5] [4].
5. Bottom line: what makes up the “bulk” of arrests, according to available reporting
Based on the FOI reporting and subsequent analysis, the majority of arrests under section 127 and section 1 in recent years are for offensive online communications—social‑media posts and messages judged grossly offensive, indecent or menacing—followed by persistent harassment and a smaller but consequential minority comprising hoax emergency calls and explicit threats; however, the absence of central, detailed government breakdowns of arrest reasons means precise proportions cannot be stated from the available sources, and the large gap between arrests and convictions indicates that many of these detentions relate to contentious or evidence‑thin cases rather than clear criminal conduct [2] [1] [5] [6].