Concerns at lack of diversity in force
‘I would back positive discrimination’
POLICING: The Chief Constable of Yorkshire’s biggest police force has said he would support positive discrimination if it meant more members of black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities becoming officers.
John Robins, of West Yorkshire Police, admitted that he was concerned at the lack of representation within the force.
THE CHIEF Constable of Yorkshire’s biggest police force has said he would support positive discrimination if it meant more members of black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities becoming officers.
John Robins, of West Yorkshire Police, admitted that he was concerned at the lack of representation within the force.
During a meeting which discussed the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, he expressed frustrations at legal guidelines in recruiting candidates based on ethnicity.
His comments came in the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel, where police representatives and councillors discussed the BLM movement’s impact on policing.
Mr Robins said that “one good thing” that could also come out of the protests, re-ignited last month by the death of George Floyd in America, was that “once and for all we need to apply positive discrimination to certain applicants” in the police, provided those people meet the requirements for joining the force.
Forces nationally are currently undergoing a major recruitment drive to replenish 20,000 officers lost from police since 2010.
The most recent figures from this month show that 6.1 per cent of West Yorkshire Police officers are currently BAME, compared with 18.2 per cent of the county’s overall population based on the 2011 census statistics.
This figure has, however, increased marginally from 4.7 per cent of officers in 2010.
Mr Robins added: “(Positive discrimination) is what happened in Northern Ireland on the basis of religion and that’s what needs to happen in the police on the basis of ethnicity and underrepresented groups.
“However, that’s for legislators to change – I cannot do anything about it locally, otherwise it would be illegal, and I would have done it by now.
“You know, in harsh terms, do we think that anything that’s occurring now is actively encouraging young black men and young black women to join public services when the narrative is about institutional and structural racism and discrimination?
“So that’s why, if some positive comes out of it, it’s got to be that.
“I can honestly hand on heart say I think we try far harder than nearly every other public sector organisation and we learn and we adapt and we look and we listen, but we’re still taking fairy steps forward and we want it to be so much more and so many more people to at least just get up to a representative group.”
Coun Amanda Carter, a Conservative member of Leeds Council, said the situation had been mirrored for women joining in the early days of the force, with many put off by the male-dominated workforce.
She said: “We have got six per cent Asians in my ward and one of the reasons they say they don’t want to join the police is pressure from their parents saying, ‘no, no, no – you’re going to go to university and you’re going to be a doctor or a pharmacist’.”
However, Coun Mohammed Iqbal, a Leeds Labour councillor, disagreed, and said that “may be the view of the older generations, but young people now will do what they want to do”.
Is anything encouraging young Black people to join public services?
Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police John Robins.