Negative view of police deters black recruits, says top officer

POLICE forces are failing to attract enough black recruits despite making good progress with other under-represented minorities, one of the country’s most senior officers has said.

The Government’s uplift programme to recruit 20,000 additional officers by March 2023 is on target, with more than 7,000 successful applicants drafted in.

But while forces are doing well in attracting female officers and those from Asian backgrounds, they are struggling to attract applicants from black, African and Caribbean communities. Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said there was no simple answer to the problem, but he believed becoming an officer still carried negative connotations for people from some backgrounds. He told the Police Foundation annual conference: “We need to collectively focus on what it means to become a police officer.

“Stepping over that line and saying ‘I want to become a police officer’ is not like saying I want to work for this particular retailer or that particular financial institution.

“It brings an impact on you as a person, it has connotations for your family, for your friendship group, it places restrictions on your lifestyle in a way that not many other roles do. Coming from a community where the relationship with the police service is strained or challenged, or in some cases quite hostile, that is an enormous step that we are expecting someone to take, which will have some real issues, particularly on their friendship groups, their families and so on.”

Mr Hewitt said in the January intake 48 per cent of recruits were women, while 12 per cent were from black and minority ethnic groups. He said while the number of Asian applicants had risen, those from black, African and Caribbean communities was static.

He said: “We need to get to a place where people from certain communities can see themselves being one of us.”