Police culture is no advert for ethnic recruiting
I WAS a teenager when I first saw the calls for Black and Asian people to join the police.
It fascinated me, as living in London I witnessed first hand so many people I knew being mistreated, insulted, humiliated and unfairly targeted by the force, including extended family members and many of my older brothers’ friends.
Not only was “Fitting the description” a commonplace excuse, officers are still using it even now to justify flagging down men and women of colour in their cars. I should know, I’ve been stopped more times than I can count.
So it is no surprise that the call for more Black and Asian people to join up hasn’t worked. Don’t take my word for it. Google the devastating 363-page assessment by Baroness Louise Casey last year which left London’s Metropolitan Police with nowhere to hide.
The report revealed a racist, bullying culture with discrimination “baked into the system”.
Among the harrowing tales, one Muslim officer had bacon stuffed in his boots, a Sikh officer had his beard cut and a female junior was subjected to repeated harassment. Minority ethnic officers were also much more likely to be disciplined or leave.
All that matters because we still do need a diverse police force, not just in London but across the country.
But why join the profession when it is routinely weaponised against you? Why sign up when many of those already working there are living a nightmare?
Now the National Black Police Association (NBPA) has sent a rallying cry to ethnic minorities, warning them not to join the Met following what it calls a “racist and vexatious” misconduct investigation into a leading officer.
It is the first call for a boycott in 20 years. But the NBPA say Charles Ehikioya, chair of the Met Black Police Association, has been deliberately targeted for calling out the behaviour of senior officers – and for claiming he and his colleagues are suffering racism.
Tellingly, the Casey Report found Black officers were 81% more likely to find themselves in the dock than their white counterparts.
Casey wrote: “Allegations against officers and staff of colour might follow when they raise their head above the parapet to call out poor behaviour.
“This is a pattern embedded across Met culture: speaking out often results in adverse consequences for the complainant.”
It is so hard to argue the case for joining the police when the facts and the culture that many Black people have warned of for years is held up to the light.
I have friends and family within the police force and even this week we have been debating this. The solution surely can’t be going back to the way it was in the 1970s.
Then again, what has changed?
‘‘ The National Black Police Association warned people not to join Met