POLICE SERVICE IS LIKE 'PERMA-FROST' SAYS CRE
(8 March 2005)

The Police Service is like a perma-frost - thawing on the top, but still frozen solid at the core, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) announced today as it published the final findings and recommendations of its formal investigation into the Police Service of England and Wales. Sir David Calvert-Smith, who led the investigation, said: "We welcome the improvements that have already been made and the strong leadership shown by the Association of Chief Police Officers. But the fact remains that every time you drill down you find that ice, and unless more is done, it won't melt any time soon."

"There is no doubt that the Police Service has made significant progress in the area of race equality in recent years. However, there is still a long way to go before we have a service where every officer treats the public and their colleagues with fairness and respect, regardless of their ethnic origin.

"Willingness to change at the top is not translating into action lower down, particularly in middle-management where you find the ice in the heart of the Police Service. For example, managers are not properly supported or fully trained on how to handle race grievances, so relatively minor issues are often unnecessarily escalated."

Referring to the murder of Stephen Lawrence and the BBC's 'Secret Policeman' programme, he added: "More than two decades on from Scarman and over five years since Macpherson, we should be at a stage where real and measurable progress can be made on race equality without innocent black teenagers being murdered or BBC documentary makers infiltrating the Service.

Responding to the report Trevor Phillips, CRE Chair, said: "When I announced this investigation, I asked how the Police Service would reassure me that they have in place a recruitment, training and vetting regime that prevents racists from donning the uniform.

"I recognise that we will never be able to weed out every single racist, but if we can change the culture of the Police Service so that racists are made to feel uncomfortable and isolated, fewer and fewer recruits of the sort so graphically displayed in the 'Secret Policeman' will want to sign up.

"Where racists do get into the service they have to be managed and their victims protected. The investigation found an atmosphere of overwhelming fear of reporting racist incidents; this has to be extinguished and racist behaviour dealt with effectively."

The report also reveals a lack of joined-up governance and haphazard compliance with the statutory duty to eliminate racial discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity and good race relations.

Sir David Calvert-Smith said: "The delicate balance in the governance of, and accountability for, policing runs the risk that 'too many cooks will spoil the broth'. As the central co-ordinating body of all the various organisations involved in governing the police service, we recommend that the Home Office assumes overall responsibility for dealing with race equality issues.

"We also found that none of the organisations we worked with complied fully with the race equality duty. For example, we wanted to find out whether ethnic minority officers were being disproportionately disciplined, but when we asked a sample group of forces for their discipline statistics, two thirds were unable to provide them in the requested format. These forces were either not recording the data as
required by the ethnic monitoring duty or were not properly monitoring them.

Trevor Phillips commented: "Sir David Calvert-Smith's findings tell us we are making progress, but the 'police family' clearly still isn't up to the mark on the race equality duty.

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