Police Leaders in the UK Admit Policies are ‘Institutionally Racist’

*Britain’s police chief says policing in the UK is “institutionally racist.”

Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), calls for reforms of national policies to eliminate discrimination.

Stephens told The Guardian that Black people disproportionately experience excessive use of force by officers, and an overhaul of policing practices across the country is necessary in tackling the issue.

“It’s a leadership responsibility for us to describe to them what it (institutional racism) means and what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that all police officers are racist,” Stephens said.

“The way our policies, procedures, training have been designed and implemented for many years have not had the voices of Black people involved in the design, the implementation, of those practices,” he added. “And as a consequence of that, we get disproportionate outcomes in places where there shouldn’t be disproportionate outcomes.”

Head of Britain’s police chiefs says force ‘institutionally racist’ https://t.co/cOUP4V3F7v

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) January 5, 2024

According to The Guardian, police leaders noted in 2022 that “Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people and five times more likely to be subjected to the use of force … 10% of our recorded searches, 27% of use-of-force incidents and 35% of Taser incidents involved someone from a Black ethnic group. The latest estimates suggest that only 3.5% of the population is Black.”

Police Scotland, Avon and Somerset Police, and the British Transport Police agree that discrimination in policing exists, but the three most prominent forces in England — including Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, reportedly disagree.

“The most helpful discussion for policing to have in the future is how we redesign the policies, the practices, the implementation, of policing to remove that discrimination,” Stephens said. 

“The problems that we need to solve across policing are at the institutional level, and they need institutional changes.”

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