The leader of Britain’s police chiefs’ organisation has become the most senior serving leader to say that policing is institutionally racist, as he called for a fundamental redesign of national policies and practices to eliminate discrimination.
Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said black people should no longer experience disproportionate use of force, and that too little progress had been made to reform policing, with some leaders slow to accept the size of the challenge.
Stephens – elected by his fellow chief constables to lead their representative body – emphasised it was his personal view that discrimination in policing operated at an “institutional level”.
The problem was acknowledged in a frank and unqualified manner… and they want to try fixing it? Is that allowed? Things can get better?? I, uh… gotta go return some videotapes
There are moves to try and fix it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66842521
The same thing was said in 1999 at the publication of the Macpherson report in the aftermath of the death of Stephen Lawrence. So why has nothing changed in the past 25 years?
That was a report on The Met. This is the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) on, presumably England’s police as a whole.
Just run yourself a query “FoI uk police with criminal convictions”. FoI stands for “freedom of information”.
You won’t be surprised to learn, from clicking a few of the results, that high ranking officers are convicted of serious crimes but are still great police officers.
Then, try the same query again with rape and sexual assault.
The site is poorly optimized for mobile, can you summarise?
I found if you turn it sideways it becomes legible.
Thank you kind netizen!
Anyone noting the sexual convictions for serving officers - not accusations, convictions.
/u/squizzy
It’s just a recent example instance of one of the search results.
You’re better off trying the same search and picking a few links to follow.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Stephens – elected by his fellow chief constables to lead their representative body – emphasised it was his personal view that discrimination in policing operated at an “institutional level”.
Stephens’ remarks come as policing continues to wrestle with the issue of whether it should accept it suffers from institutional discrimination, a debate dating back more than 30 years.
His intervention will add to pressure on the heads of England’s biggest forces to adopt the idea – including the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley.
Asked for clarity on whether his personal view was that “police are institutionally racist”, Stephens replied “yes”, while emphasising that his reasoning for reaching that conclusion was important.
After the murder of George Floyd in the US and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the NPCC promised reform and launched a race action plan – which critics say has done little or nothing after three years.
The scale of the racial disparity in the use of force in England and Wales was laid out by police leaders in 2022, when they launched the first written version of their race plan.
The original article contains 920 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
