UK police force needs to fight racism

A committee of MPs has warned racist discrimination still exists in the UK police, said the BBC.

The Commons home affairs committee report said police forces had met 67 out of 70 targets on discrimination.

However, it still failed to employ 7% if its officers from ethnic minorities, according to the BBC.

10 years ago, Stephen Lawrence's stabbing in London led an inquiry to call the Metropolitan Police "institutionally racist".

10 years later, the MPs are welcoming the “tremendous strides” in countering racist officers since the death of Stephen Lawrence, said the Daily Telegraph.

But the MPs went on to say forces had made slow progress on meeting their target of the number of ethnic minority officers they employed, as mentioned in the article earlier.

The MP told the Daily Telegraph they were concerned at “apparent discrimination” in the promotion of black and other ethnic minority officers.

According to the Keith Vaz, Committee Chairman said: “We congratulate the police on
the strides they have made in tackling the institutional racism identified by the Macpherson Report ten years ago.

“However, while there is such blatantly disproportionate representation of particularly black people in the criminal justice system – in the use of stop and search or on the DNA database – there will continue to be damage to community relations which in turn undermine police work.

“Any gains made by the use of stop and search, which we know can be very useful, risk being offset by its impact on community relations.”

On the other hand, Keith Bristow, an Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) spokesman told the BBC there was no racial discrimination within the police forces.

She went on to say in an interview with the BBC Radio 5 Live attitude within the police reflected those of wider society, where “of course there are some people that have racist views, the same as there are some people who have views about women”.

He then added: “But I’d say as a service we have worked as hard if not harder than anyone else to make sure that we have the most balanced, fair and ethical workforce possible.”

The 1993 case, reportedly an unprovoked racist assault in Eltham, south-east London left a vacancy that no-one has ever been convinced of his killing, according to the BBC.

Almost six years later, a judicial inquiry led by Sir William Macpherson, found out the police investigation into Stephen’s murder “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers”, the BBC has learnt.

During the ten years, the committee said, 67 of the inquiry's recommendations had been implemented - at least in part.

Mr Vaz praised the work of the police to tackle these failings, but he said the target to recruit 7% of officers from the ethnic minorities was among those still outstanding, roughly in proportion to the composition of the UK’s population.

"We are also particularly concerned at the discrimination which apparently persists within the force, in recruitment and promotion of black and minority ethnic officers," he said in an interview with the BBC.
"The police service must now focus its efforts on tackling these issues within its own workforce."