Race and Policing
In 1999, the MacPherson Inquiry published its report into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the police service is still implementing recommendations from the MacPherson Inquiry but there are indications of significant improvements.
MacPherson defined Institutional Racism as:
The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.
MacPherson, 1999
Nevertheless, there continue to be problems, with people from BME communities more likely to be stopped and searched, less likely to be serving members of police forces, and more likely to expect unfair treatment from the police.
What is the IPCC doing?
The IPCC’s predecessor, the Police Complaints Authority, produced guidelines on ‘Investigating allegations of racially discriminatory behaviour (pdf 99k)’ to ensure that complaints investigations are fair and thorough. The IPCC is working with these guidelines.
The IPCC has produced a Race Equality Scheme, which sets out the mechanisms by which we will ensure that both our internal processes and the services we provide are free from discrimination and seek to promote race equality and good community relations.
The recent report of the Commission for Racial Equality Formal Investigation into the police service in England and Wales makes a number of references to the IPCC. The IPCC's response to the report will be published shortly. In the meantime you can find a summary of the relevant issues in an appendix to a paper which was discussed at the Commission meeting on 25 May.
Get help opening pdfs with Adobe Acrobat Online Tools
Related Topics
Access to the Police Complaints System
We are concerned that people from ethnic minorities are less likely to know about the IPCC, which could affect how likely they are to complain.
62% of people have heard of the IPCC, but this falls to 38% among Black people, and 27% among Asian people (Public Confidence Survey).
The IPCC is taking steps to tackle this, eg:
- provision of leaflets in a variety of languages; written, face-to-face and telephone translation available
- forming local level contacts with organisations such as Race Equality Councils to improve knowledge
- working with media widely read by ethnic minority populations to raise awareness
