Media Storm - S3E9 An institutionally racist police force: Process of elimination

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: https://mediastormpodcast.com/2023/09/04/3-9-an-institutionally-racist-police-force-process-of-elimination-pt-1/ 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 first in a three-part Media Storm investigation into institutional racism in UK police forces. In it, we provide statistical evidence of institutional racism at a recruitment level and, with the help of lived experience, identify where it is occurring and how to fix it.   This investigation follows the conclusion of Police Uplift, a three-year initiative by the Conservative Government to recruit 20,000 new police officers. This was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure police forces represent the communities they serve, an opportunity that the government and National Police Chief’s Council promised would be seized.   Yet Media Storm’s data falsifies a key assumption informing their diversity schemes, one that is also used to excuse slow progress: the idea that People of Colour are less likely to apply to be police officers than people of White British ethnicity. For Police Uplift, Media Storm reveals, Minority Ethnic groups were over-represented among police candidates, but underrepresented among those appointed.   This proves that the problem lies not with communities but with the assessment process, during which minorities are eliminated at discriminatory rates. Join Media Storm and guest experts for an in-depth dive into what is going wrong, as we ask the question: What does “institutional racism” actually mean?   The episode is created by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).   Buy the team a coffee on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast    Guests Dr Pete Jones @fatwhitebloke Chris Donaldson, co-founding member of National Black Police Association @trojan1963 Andy George, President of NBPA @andygeorgeni   Sources Subscribe to Media Storm on Patreon for access to FOI data: https://www.patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast  Police Uplift appointment data (can beaccessed quarterly): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-officer-uplift-quarterly-update-to-march-2023 Police Uplift announcement: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-campaign-to-recruit-20000-police-officers-launches-today Ethnic representation preceding Uplift: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/955182/police-workforce-mar20-hosb2020.pdf   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

Halloween is on Disney Plus. Hello. So you can feel a little fear. What's this? Well. Or a little more fear. I see dead people. Or a lot of fear.

Mom? Or you can get completely terrified. Who's that? Choose wisely. With Halloween on Disney Plus. us. This is the first in a three-part media storm investigation into institutional racism in UK police forces. In it, we will provide statistical evidence of institutional racism at a recruitment level, and, with the help of lived experience, diagnose exactly where it is arising

and how to fix it. It's years too late, but it needs to be done. And as far as we can tell, no one, not in the police, not in the government. is doing it. Now, we touched on recruitment bias in our episode on policing eight weeks ago. For any new listeners, Media Storm is a podcast

that takes unfolding news stories and re-examines them from the perspective of first-hand-lived experience. This season features ex-far-right radicals, domestic abuse survivors, workers on strike,

and yes, police officers. Matilda, tell us what's changed since then. Back then, as you pointed out, Helen, we already had an early estimation of this discrimination thanks to a preliminary round of FOIs sent to a small sample of forces by a specialist we worked with. This showed black applicants were 40% more likely to be rejected

than white applicants, but as it turns out, it's an underestimation. It prompted us to send FOIs to every police force in England and Wales. An FOI, or Freedom of Information Request, is a request for information recorded by a public authority. It is a right enshrined to the British public since the Freedom of Information Act was passed in 2000, and one to which authorities must respond within 20 working days. We've acquired an unparalleled data resource to examine what's really going on inside the force to take the label institutionally racist and ask what that actually means in day-to-day, tangible, fixable terms.

Have all the forces supplied data? So several initially declined, saying they don't properly store the data and it would therefore take too long to retrieve it. I challenged them on that as they're legally obliged to store that data under the Equality Act. So then some provided it. Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire still declined. But 33 forces have provided the data, including the Met, although they took over 100 days to reply. And now we have data for over 180,000 people applying for. for police forces all over the country.

That is the bulk of the UK's most significant recruitment drive in the past almost half a century. So, yes, this is a really valuable data set. And to no one more valuable than the police itself if they're serious about self-improvement. Have they not been utilising this data internally? It doesn't look that way. As far as we can tell,

ours is the first attempt to systematically collate that data, let alone analyze it. But sadly, as I said earlier, it is three years too late. I was going to say, these findings come at the end of police uplift, a three-year initiative by the Conservative Government to recruit 20,000 new police officers. We haven't seen a drive like this in generations, and we likely won't see one again for as long. This was the chance for real change, and any lessons now are a lifetime too late. However, there is one thing that's different about this new generation of police applicants to any we've seen before.

And if people take one thing away from this listen, I want it to be this. And why is that? Because while our data set offers a lot of new learnings, one in particular flies in the face of the accepted knowledge with which we've been working. It's a myth that has been repeated back to me repeatedly by authorities I've interviewed for this investigation. the assumption that the problem starts with communities, that people of colour don't want to be police officers or are less likely to apply to be police officers than white people, that that is why our forces don't represent their communities.

But our data set proves, while this may have once been true, it is not anymore. Today, the opposite is true. Okay, so you compared to the proportion of each ethnic group as a share of the total applicants to its share of the population at large and found... And found that over the past three years, ethnic minorities have been statistically

more likely to apply for the police force than people of white British ethnicity. Black, Asian, mixed, all are now slightly overrepresented among police candidates, but heavily underrepresented among those actually hired. Which means the disparities emerging

entirely from the selection process, a process which apparently isn't even up for review, So that's where we step in. Exactly. Over the next three weeks, we and our listeners will be doing that work for the police. We'll be sitting down with experts and stakeholders to find out what this tells us about political priorities, where the racism is actually occurring and how, if at all, to fix it. 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 instinctively. Institutionally racist, sexist, misogynistic. I mean, do you accept that there is still institutional racism? 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. An institutionally racist police force. Process of Elimination. Part 1. September 2019. Two months before a general election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson makes an announcement. Today, we're putting another 20,000 officers on the streets on the street.

We're recruiting 20,000 officers. It will take a while to get them all out there. 20,000 new police officers in three years. The policy's slogan, a force for all. Or in the words of the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council, today's recruitment campaign will help us to accelerate our plans to improve diversity. in policing. Recruitment begins in April 2020.

Get off of his net! He'll still on him, bro. And then a month later, George Floyd, a black U.S. civilian, is murdered by a white police officer. His death sparks a global Black Lives Matter movement against brutal, racist policing, with protests sweeping across continents. Why are you so angry? I'm angry because it's been going on forever.

Two weeks after the protests reached the UK, two Black sisters, Bieber Henry and Nicole Smolman, are murdered in London. Their mother accuses the Metropolitan Police of racist neglect. Then two police officers take selfies with the sisters' dead bodies and share them on a police WhatsApp group. Those police officers dehumanised our children. Three months after they are sentenced, in March 2021, the abduction rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving MET officer pressures the force to call an internal report. We'll be silent. We are not be silent. This report will officially label it. Institutionally racist, misogynistic and discriminatory. Project uplift, Boris's recruitment scheme, is still running.

At this point in time, 8,700 new officers have been recruited. Government updates tell us the force is more representative than ever before. Black officers make up 1.3% of the force compared to to 1.26% the year before. Uplift closes in March 2023. The black share of officers is still 1.3%, less than a third of its share of the population. Repeatedly, we have been told by authorities that police representation is being addressed,

that, to quote, a statement sent to Media Storm by the National Police Chiefs Council, we have more black ethnic minority and Asian officers than ever before. In this, they point us to the final numbers, the ethnic breakdown of those appointed. But what does that really tell us if we don't even know who applied? Well, now, we do, and it's not a pretty picture. Discrimination is clear, with black and minority ethnic applicants as a whole, facing 45% higher deselection rates than white applicants.

And get this, black applicants fared the worst, with a 60% higher rejection rate. Those of Asian ethnicity were 51% more likely and of mixed ethnicity, 33% more likely to be rejected than white applicants. Hi, I'm Pete Jones. I'm a chartered psychologist. I work for Chiae Profession Chartered Psychologists.

Earlier this year, while researching for Media Storm's third season, I found a Dr. Pete Jones tweeting religiously about intricate details of policing structures from a small office in Sheffield. As far as I could tell, at fat white bloke, Pete's chosen Twitter handle, had found quite a straightforward way to prove or disprove institutional racism, but no one was paying him any attention. For almost a decade, Pete has tried to alert police forces directly to this discrepancy,

even working in their employment as a recruitment bias specialist. So we're going to talk today about the data that you and I have worked together to uncover about bias in police recruitment. Can you tell us why did you first pinpoint this issue and decide to investigate it more closely in the first place? I've been monitoring the processes at the College of Police in probably for about eight or nine years. And then, of course, when police uplift came,

I started to think that perhaps this was an opportunity of a generation. So I was monitoring the reports coming quarterly out of the uplift program, which was showing very, very marginal increases in the representation of black minority ethnic officers, fractions of 1%. I worked it out that before we got to the point of representation, i.e., that we represented the communities that we served, it was going to probably be two or three generations at this rate. Presumably, it would take two to three generations if we were to continue recruiting thousands of new officers at the same rate, which we're not going to do. Exactly. It was always going to be a failure in that regard. But the other issue, and this is why I started to look at this data in more detail, was that the data that came on the uplift report was just the outcome was, which is how many black and minority ethnic people were being offered positions. What it wasn't telling us was, well, how many people applied to be police officers and how many of those people ended up being appointed. So let's talk about the process that we went through to get that data.

It was quite difficult. Some police forces actually refused to provide the data requested, as they said, that they didn't collect the data systematically enough. The fact that they don't gather the data says something in the first place. I find it astounding that when they're making all these efforts and noise to try and recruit a representative police force, they don't actually know who is applying to them. Some of the forces only were able to provide ethnicity data in the category B-A-M-E, so conflating all different minority ethnic groups together.

But the calculations that we've done actually show a really big difference in the discrimination faced by those different groups. Yeah, and it's not just the same categories, even within a community like the Asian community, you see differential pass rates between, for example, people whose background is Pakistani, Bangladeshi versus those which is Indian, you know, between, for example, people who are Black African versus Black Caribbean, they're very different communities with very different issues. And it's really difficult to get understanding if you're not actually looking at the data in that kind of detail. But there was a consistent pattern where almost every minority ethnic community did significantly more poorly than the white community. Given that we are being told

a lot now by representatives of different police forces, that tackling institutional racism is a priority. Why did we have to do this? Why were police forces not already doing it? Does that show that it actually isn't a priority in reality? That's absolutely right. When you know you've got a problem and you don't even try to understand it or to fix it, that's pretty much the definition of institutional racism. If anybody had monitored results of what was happening during police uplift, somebody should have said, stop. We can't continue doing this. They should have known probably within months

of the three-year project starting that they had a problem with the recruit assessment centre nationally and more so at a local level. Somebody should have pulled the plug. Do you think that they were completely unaware of that happening and that's why they didn't pull the plug? Or do you think that they just thought no one will ever really look into it?

and no one will ever really find out. I think there's a bit of both in it, really. I think local police forces felt fairly secure that they were not going to be asked for the data. But I don't think they actually knew about what they could do with that data. It is literally a complete blind spot for them. Can I also get your reaction to one calculation I did,

which definitely does not feed into the myth that minority ethnic groups are less likely to apply for the police force? The numbers actually show they may be slightly more likely. Are you surprised by that? I'm surprised by it because I've always said, I can't understand why black monarchy ethnic communities in this country have been so patient with policing. Every time we say, you know, be the solution, you know,

don't just snipe from the sidelines, be the solution. They do step up and then our processes turn them down. The system is geared up to fail them. Let's take a break Media Stormers, remember Chris Donaldson? I'm a retired police inspector, did 30 years in the Metro Police, and I retired in 2013. spoke in our policing episode at the start of this season about his lived experience as a black police officer in the Met.

He'd signed up to the force despite feared family resistance. So I asked him what made him want to join to help us understand the pull factors influencing many and especially, as it seems today, many ethnic minorities to sign up. One of the chaps said the rugby club realized I was confused, I think, is the best way. I'm in the sixth film and I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do. And he said, why don't you consider being a police officer? And it was like a lightning bolt, really, because I'd never thought about it.

However, when I looked at it in detail, it ticked all the boxes for me. I quite often don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want. And one of the things I didn't want was to sit in an office. I wanted to a challenge daily. I wanted to use my physical strength and my brain on a daily basis. And it just ticked all the boxes. The same things that attract white kids should attract black kids. It was my first job interview as a 19-year-old, and I never looked back.

Has that career fulfilled all your expectations? And more, much more, much more than I had ever imagined. Adventure, friendships, travel. Financially, it was rewarding because I had invested in a pension on the day one we were made to, and it was the best bit of paper I ever signed because it was a pension that I invested in 11% of my wages. for 30 years and now I can live comfortably. So yeah, it fulfilled everything and more. I mean, I became an advanced driver. I became a firearms advanced shot. I became a public order commander,

a negotiator, experiences I would never have had a fraudulent place. If you're a young kid and thinking of an exciting experience, I would join the police. I don't care what color you are. Think about yourself and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. It's a job that I would if I was 19, I would start again today. But was that not hampered by experiences of internal racism? I mean, did you experience any internal racism? Far less than I experienced outside from the public. Some hurty words now and again, and some of it was inappropriate.

But if I went to boys' schools, I played rugby from the age of 12. I grew up in a very male environment where that is very common. I'm not saying it's right, but it's very common. So anyway, I didn't even lose sleep over. anything that happened in a canteen to me, you know, or any words that were said to me. I'm not saying everyone would have that experience or should have their experience. So, yeah, it was wrong. But if I thought the police force is going to be easy, I would never have joined.

Chris went on to co-found, the National Black Police Association in 1998, which brings us onto our next guest. My name's Andy George, and I'm the president of the National Black Police Association. Andy tells me his experiences as an ethnic minority were a fundamental part. of why he wanted to join the police. Growing up in Northern Ireland, being the only person of colour in the room, I suppose I had to deal with a lot of bully and a lot of racism. Being the oldest in the family, I had to kind of protect my brothers and sisters a little bit more.

Going through that, I was always somebody that stood up for others, and that's what probably brought me into policing. I did get racism, both in the training centre, from the training sergeant, where chocolate body paint was put on a doll on a Christmas night out. I was also told that I should be really good at darts because of my spearst. through a day's, it's been rewarding at the same time. So whilst you've had the day with racism, both from the public and from your own colleagues at times,

I've also felt very much part of the team. So it's been almost like a double-edged sword. At first, he stayed away from the Black Police Association, but more severe experiences of internal racism, experiences that culminated in a tribunal, drove him to sign up in 2016. Four years later, he became its president. Could you just tell us a little bit about

what the National Black Police Association is and does. The National Black Police Association is an umbrella organisation of in and around 50 local associations which represent black, Asian and minority ethnic officers and staff members within policing. And how does that body interact with, for example, the College of Policing, the National Police Chiefs Council, the Home Office? What's your relationship like with them? So as president of the National Black Police Association, I usually meet all of those key stakeholders. I usually have quarterly meetings with the Home Secretary, although haven't had the opportunity to meet this one. We're here today to talk about this data that we've collected across police forces in England and Wales that shows quite a stark disparity in recruitment success rates for different ethnic groups.

What is your reaction to these findings? the worst bit is I'm probably not that shocked or surprised it's something that we've been pushing on with the police uplift program about how we can get more people from ethnic minority backgrounds into policing it doesn't just start at the recruitment process it's also those that we're attracting we do have less people coming forward

but the fact that even when they do come forward and apply they are less likely to get in is something that's of deep concern to ourselves something that is very interesting to me is you pointed out that outreach is a problem that we have less people coming forwards from certain communities. So I worked out the proportion of each ethnic group as a whole among the applicants and compared this to their proportional representation among the population at large. And it actually seems that with the uplift

applicants, we didn't have disproportionately fewer from minority ethnic communities. They were actually very accurately represented with a slight skew towards being overly represented. So if anything, there were fewer white people coming through. I wonder whether this surprises you and whether you think that this idea that one of the problems with representation is that people from these communities just don't want to be part of the police force, whether that is actually a dated idea at this stage in the game. The fact that you're kind of the first person to put that across to me, even though we've worked with the uplift plan, I think shows that policing doesn't always look in the right areas. There has been a lot of focus in the last three years and doing some

that outreach work, that may have paid dividends, but I definitely think it's a dated idea that people don't want to come forward. I think that's sometimes the issue with the College of Policing. It doesn't always move on with what the actual data tells us. It's something that we can certainly take back and make sure that that's fed into some of that decision making. You said that you were aware during uplift that there wasn't enough being done. Did you try to communicate this and to have this addressed? And what kind of response did you get to that? Yeah, no, we've consistently made them aware that we were concerned. We have also worked with local recruitment teams to try to figure out where the issues are.

But once people get in, that discrimination continues, you know, even those that do make it through, Regulation 13 notices, which are underperformance for probationers, there's a lot of evidence around them disproportionately impacting black Asian minority ethnic officers. Even internally, we've supported chief inspectors who have moved from one force to the other and failed their vetting. And at times, the organisation can almost turn against you to the point where they, feel like taking their own lives because it is a dangerous place if you're a whistleblower that's how much it can actually impact people and that's why it's so important that we get this right in the first instance because it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really increase the

diversity within policing and I think it's one that we've just missed we put that across a number of occasions obviously the issue with the national black police association is that we are not a statutory staff association we're a staff network so our ability to really have any power to change these issues was limited. Do you think that one solution that we should be talking about in this conversation, therefore, is the power that the National Black Police Association has to influence processes like this? Yeah, no, definitely. We do not have those that are most impacted by the disproportionality involved in the decision-making process and also involved in the assessment process as well. And to be fair, in the last three years, the College of Policing and National

Police Chiefs Council have been a lot more open in engagement. the National Black Police Association in the past. We probably would not have been consulted during the process. We would have been left at the very end. And that's going to impact on what evidence is being put across in these selection processes. Some steps have been taken in the right direction. A spokesperson from the National Police Chiefs Council

told us that pass rates by the end of uplift had increased by up to 16% for ethnic minorities and 19% for black candidates compared to the beginning of the scheme. They said, quote, We have worked with forces to build capability and outreach and encourage conversation with those who might have previously discounted policing. We have laid the foundations for fairer selection across our processes.

Chief constables are committed to becoming more representative. We must continue to improve policing for everyone who feels marginalized by policing because of their ethnicity. This is in our best interest, the best interest of the communities we serve, and those who give service as officers, staff and volunteers. But improvement takes introspection. So next week, join us again as we pick apart the recruitment process

in an attempt to identify where the bias is emerging. And don't forget our live show at King's Place London on Saturday the 16th of September. Link is in the show notes. 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 ACOS creator network. The music is by Samfire. Thank you.