With a decade of budget cuts and officers forced to deal with issues like mental health problems, new demands imposed on Police Scotland are a real threat to our traditional system of community policing.
The good news is that hate crime allegations have already settled down. The initial avalanche of spite and politically motivated bile was rightly disregarded. The initial interest in the new law was to be expected, as was the quick tail-off — but the legislation was unnecessary in the first place.
It's the unfortunate tendency of new legislative bodies to want to make their mark with new laws. While during the Scottish Parliament's early years, MSPs managed to control this urge, in the last decade the temptation to legislate has been hard to resist.
The consequence has been a growing list of unworkable and unnecessary laws, like the smacking ban. As fringe political parties have somehow managed to lever influence, the zeal to legislate and control has produced even more bizarre laws, including the blocked gender recognition reform bill and now the Hate Crime Act.
How I wish that, when new legislation comes to mind, our politicians would first check to see if it's already covered by existing laws. They may find our old and superbly adaptable laws have more than adequate provision to deal with most circumstances already.
The Chief Constable of Police Scotland rightly highlighted the mounting pressures: police time wasted at court, front-line officers tied up looking after people who should be in the care of mental health or social care services. These problems now combine with new demands and a decade of budget cuts to pose a real threat to our traditional system of community policing.
We do not need new laws. We need to resource the enforcement of existing ones.