Media Storm - S3E11 The solutions: Undoing an institutionally racist police force

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Episode transcript: https://mediastormpodcast.com/2023/09/14/3-11-the-solutions-undoing-an-institutionally-racist-police-force/ Join Media Storm LIVE at Kings Place, London, Saturday 16th Sep, 7pm: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/media-storm-2/   This is the final instalment of Media Storm’s three-part investigation into racially discriminatory police recruitment: and it’s time to talk solutions.   What needs to be done to ensure that Black applicants to UK police forces are no longer 60% more likely to be rejected than White ones? Is internal reform enough, or are more radical measures needed?   This episode investigates positive action schemes and revolutionary models of community policing. The hosts brainstorm with the UK’s best-performing police force when it comes to minority pass rates, Dyfed-Powys in Wales, as well as former and serving police officers with expertise in recruitment and lived experience of racial profiling and discrimination.   The episode is created by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).   Subscribe to Media Storm on Patreon for access to our FOI data: https://www.patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast    Guests Karen Geddes, The Thin Black Line @KarenGeddesQPM Karyn Howells, Dyfed-Powys Recruitment Lead Nia Rees, Dyfed-Powys Positive Action Officer Dr Pete Jones, psychologist @fatwhitebloke Brendan O’Brien, Bluelight founder Charles Ehikioya, Metropolitan Black Police Association @ChazzzaCr   Contact us Twitter, Insta, TikTok, Facebook: @mediastormpod Email [e-mail]   Media Storm first launched from the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the final part of Media Storm's special investigation into the government's uplift scheme to recruit 20,000 new police officers in three years, which revealed black applicants were rejected from the force 60% more often than white ones. If you're not caught up, go back an episode or two and learn how Media Storm uncovered this evidence and questioned what could possibly be causing it, education gaps, language barriers, or plain old racism. In part one, we laid out evidence of this racial disparity. In part two, we asked why it was happening,

and now we're on to the final instalment. It's time to talk solutions. For more than two decades, David Carrick, a serial rapist hid behind his police uniform. Wayne Cousins will never be released from prison. Admitted publicly that his force is institutionally racist, sexist, misogynistic. I mean, do you accept that there is full institution? I don't find it a helpful label.

Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson. And I'm Helena Wadia. This week's investigation, the solutions, undoing an institutionally racist police force. So you're telling me that the NPCC and the College of Refuse an interview? Yes, exactly that. I approached the College of Policing. I approached the National Police Chiefs Council.

each referred me to the other for answers. The College of Policing I actually have to quote their email. They said it wouldn't be appropriate for us to be interviewed as this isn't our area. We are only responsible to setting the standards.

So yeah, frustrating. But they're making themselves so stupid. So they set the standards. The standards haven't been met. What are they doing about it? Oh, why. Oh, yeah, yeah. I love being a person.

police officer. I enjoyed my time, but sometimes you just want to go, wake up. This is me chatting to Karen Geddes, former West Midlands Police Superintendent, after our interview in the first part of this miniseries. I'm not surprised that the college and NPCC are being so bullish because you found them out. And I think it's embarrassing that in between the two policing agency, they are exhibiting something like this externally. Since interviewing Karen two and a half weeks ago, I've felt a change of tune from some policing authorities. Jeanette McCormick from the National Police Chiefs Council joined us for an interview last week. And some days later, Media Storm was contacted by the uplift team, who, after having

initially disputed the validity of our data, now wants to meet in order to review it. So today, we look at solutions. We really appreciate you taking the time to look into this. We've been saying this for ages, but without the evidence, we don't get listened to. So thank you for taking the time out to research and do that. While Media Storm's data found that across England and Wales, police forces were 45% more likely to reject ethnic minority applicants than white ones. Some local forces fed better than others.

Top of the leaderboard was Deufid Powers in the far west of Wales. So we thought they might have some pointers. My name's Karen Howells. I'm the force lead for recruitment selection and apprenticeships within Dovid Powers Police. My name is Nia Rees and I'm the positive action officer here for David Powers Police. Two core themes came up in this interview. Themes I've found have come to dominate talk of solutions. One is positive action.

So schemes to support or fast-track certain people through the selection process. The other is community policing, the idea of rethinking police structures based on grassroots feedback. The positive action that we provide is open to all underrepresented groups. What we do is provide candidates with the information as far as we can just to give them an awareness of what each stage is going to entail. advise them of what those tests look like and we give them some practice examples that have been provided by the College of Policing. For our ethnic minorities, some of them, they welcome that communication and that introduction and information on the process before they make that next step to actually coming into a police building. And more widely speaking, what kind of

strategies do you use to engage with these minority communities? We sort of target university, schools, colleges. Myself, I'll go to career events. We do have engagement officers working in our communities, making relations with places of worship and different multicultural support networks and things like that in different areas of our forces. Are there any lessons that other forces can take away

from your successes? Other forces have come to us and said, What are you doing that is so great? But I think for David Powis, because we are such a small force, we're talking very low numbers, but in percentage to our overall police officer establishment, it looks higher because we're a small force. But so is there perhaps an indication here of the benefits of smaller forces and maybe the ability that

comes with it to work at a more localized, intimate level with the community to build a force that serves its needs? Yes, yeah, I think is a lot to do with that personal touch. When we look at ourselves as a family force, so there's a lot of community. with all candidates during recruitment process, whereas larger forces may not have that amount of contact with individuals. And with some people, that is what they like, isn't it? They can build up that rapport and that relationship. My final question is about the importance of this all. Why is positive action a priority for your force? I think raising confidence in policing. So, for example, we have quite a large Polish community and we've been able to recruit

Polish individuals, they can communicate to their own communities. The communities see them from a confidence point of view, are more likely to approach and interact with somebody who's from their own communities. So it's really important that we're able to provide the same level of service to everybody within our communities. But even with positive action, they are still playing catch up. So what every force is trying to do is be representative of their communities. Obviously, the census is undertaken every 10 years and the results came out recently from that. Ethnicity, the population has risen. So whereas for David Powers, we were one of the few forces who were meeting our representation.

Unfortunately, now we've fallen back slightly underneath because the census shows that the figures have increased. Obviously, that's not where we would like to be because it means we're not representative. Can sufficient change come from inside? through incremental internal reform or are more drastic measures in order. Dr Pete Jones, the recruitment specialist and psychologist who worked on this data with Media Storm, says positive action is a vital determiner of why some forces' numbers were better than others. It's all about resources on the positive action side, I think, because although I don't see that the national recruit process is fit for purpose,

the reality of it is that if you can get people, to the assessment centre, well prepared, they tend to pass. But positive action can be cheated. So one of the issues we have around the national recruit process, and we've had it for some years, is that the pass rate for people who go through coaching programmes is significantly higher. So companies like Blue Light, who will coach people through the national recruit process, they have miraculous pass rates.

Some people can afford that coaching, other people can't afford it. So there's a disparity right away. I personally would like to see a coaching package for everybody along the lines of blue light. I see the problem, but it's interesting because if these services could be put to use by diversity agents within the police to support minorities through that process, then this potential problem could be part of the solution. I might try and talk to the founder of blue light. Yeah, I think you'll find Brendan is a vocal antagonist. of the national process.

He often talks about the fact that he could coach his 13-year-old daughter to pass it. And he can get AI to pass the National Recruit Centre. So that shows that it's vulnerable to coaching, if you like. My 11-year-old daughter could pass the assessment centre and I'll put money on it because I can coach her through it because it's so formulaid

and it probably favours people who are better connected with the police already. Former police officer Brendan O'Brien runs a Facebook group of 22,000 current and aspiring police officers facing the recruitment process. For people who currently have access to the kind of support Blue Light provides, what's the success rate and what kind of price tag do you put on that success rate? A success rate is enormous.

In terms of costs, it depends on the individual. If they want one-to-one intensive coaching with me, then there's a price tag to that. Or there's an online course that can do as well. And there's a price tag to that. But I'm so confident that what I say to them is if you fail, I'll give you a money back. Wow. And I have to ask, do you get many people of colour coming to you?

Or would you say that there's an imbalance in terms of who is accessing this private coaching? I'd say there's probably an imbalance. Yeah. Why do you think that might be? So I think it's close social ties because so many of my clients who come to me come to me after being recommended by someone who's in the police already. Now, if we think about it, if the police are underrepresented already, then if you've got a close social tie who's just joined, it's highly likely that they're going to be white, because the force is disproportionately white. So inequality produces inequality?

Yeah. Well, thank you, firstly, for giving me access. Scrolling through the group, I can really see why this Facebook group is a gold mine for anyone hoping to get through the assessment process. And I really feel it could be a good prototype for police forces looking for positive action schemes that are really, really helpful. Yeah. What I do is I provide that forum for people to learn from each other and help each other. And there's a lot of people in HR in there, and there's a lot of senior police officers who will lend their support when they feel as if they need to. Am I right in thinking that some police forces, I believe I was told Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, have actually sought your coaching services.

for minorities as part of their positive action? No, they have, yeah. And how did that work out? Brilliantly. Everyone that put in front of me, just about every one of them passed. Okay, so from all of this, is it fair to say that one solution police forces could employ is investing in mentorship and support schemes for minority applicants going through the assessment process, applicants who are currently being rejected at discriminatory rates?

I think it absolutely could be. but, you know, I don't like it. I've only worked with two forces. I've had other forces approach me, but I've said no to them. Because quite frankly, in many ways, what forces have been asking me to do is, can you help us get people through a broken system? It doesn't solve the problem. It just puts a sticking plaster on it.

You give me 100 people from minority groups who want to join the police. 90 out of 100 will pass. But it doesn't achieve anything. All I'm doing is showing people how to play a broken system. Okay, so you... Brendan, are president of the College of Policing for one day. What would you change to fix this, as you call it, broken system? Start all over again, but this time do it in a way that's more collaborative. What would the recruitment process be if we did that? Because I know forces at

the moment are saying that we need consultative groups, we're going to do outreach this and all the rest of it, but when they're going to people from minority groups, they're probably finding people who love the police already. Do you know where I'd start? I'd start with all people who've complained about racism within the police, that'd be my starting point. Just the fact that you've complained means they're care enough to act. Policing by consent. This is the core idea on which the UK policing model is built. It comes from the nine commandments, if you like, given to the first officers of the Met Police in 1829 and named after then-home secretary, Sir Robert Peel.

The nine Peelian principles remind police officers that all their powers, depend on public approval and respect. And if, as Brendan advises, we start from scratch, they might be what we're left with. So are there any models we can look to but have attempted to start from scratch to rebuild from the ground up? After the break, we'll take a look.

Thanks for sticking around. Before we continue, we wanted to tell you about a podcast that we absolutely love listening to. It's outrage and optimism, a useful weekly guide for anyone wanting to make sense of the complexity of the climate conversation. Whether you're suffering from climate anxiety or are already fired up, full of hope and taking action, or somewhere in between, the podcast will help you navigate feelings of outrage and optimism and leave you feeling informed and inspired. Hosted by Christiana Figueras, Tom Rivett Karnik and Paul Dickinson, the trio share their expertise, insight and humour with the world's climate thought leaders, making the show the leading global independent climate podcast. We highly recommend you check it out, so search outrage and optimism wherever you get your podcasts.

In Canada, on some of the lands of indigenous Canadians, the police service is closely known as a tribal police service. Jones says there is an example of a real-life police force where the community has been asked to set the criteria and the officers have been recruited from that. He tells me about the Peel Regional Police Force, named after those nine Peelian principles we talked about in Ontario, Canada. So in those areas they have higher numbers of Indigenous police officers policing Indigenous communities. They sat down with communities and says, what is it you need from your police officers? And I think we should have done that because if communities are not at the heart of it and telling us, well, what we need

from our police officers is this, then we're going to design recruiting processes as we have that really look to measure technical skills. I think communities would be much more interested in the service ethos of people applying. They'd be much more interested in the values of the person who's joining the job, than an interview panel with a competency framework sat in front of them. So in a nutshell, what would your lesson from this be to the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs Council? Talk to communities about what they want, you know, not the usual suspects. I don't think you can get that from the former blackhead teacher. I think you need to go and talk to people who've been stop-searched.

Let's do as Pete suggests and speak to someone who has been at the receiving end of an unrepresentative, and as it's been officially labelled, institutionally racist police force. A police officer himself, our next guest, was pulled over by members of his own force. Why? He says for one reason alone, he's black. Charles Eichoya is the Black Police Association's recruitment rep in London's Metropolitan Police. I asked him whether rebuilding from the community art was what this all comes down to. Yes, of course it is. Let's reconnect properly with our community. And remember the Pellian principles, which says that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder and not the visible evidence of police actions in dealing with it. So we need to be more community focus. We need to be more engaging and less military style. Because after all, the community.

are the police and the police are the community. We serve with consent of the public because we are part of the public as well. But for any of this discussion to have relevance, we end back where we began. Accountability. Yeah, we could do better. We need to stop the act of defence of wanting to be right. Nobody is about making mistakes and we are human. However, if we're doing whatever we're doing,

and it's not working and we're not seeing any changes. Like any good professional, we need to revisit it and perhaps change our tactics and listen to the people that are at the receiving end of it. That wraps Media Storm's special investigation into an institutionally racist police, process of elimination. But we'll continue to push our findings behind the scenes and hope they lead to action. In the meantime, join us this Saturday at King's Place in London for a live show with three incredible guests, The Times, Manvine Rana, Navarra's Moyalothian McLean and comedian Athena Kukbrenu. The ticket link is in the episode description. We can't wait to see you there.

Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us. a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal, at Helena Wadia

and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. Get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. Media Storm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helen Awadier and Matilda Malinson. It came from the house of the guilty feminist and is part of the ACAS creator network. The music is by Samfire.