It’s been almost 25 years since the Macpherson Inquiry found that the Metropolitan police were institutionally racist. It was supposed to be a watershed moment, triggering a transformation in leadership that would address the rotten culture at the heart of the UK’s biggest police force – a mindset that resulted in its officers bungling the investigation into the racially-motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence.
For years it’s been obvious that little, if anything, was changing. The use of stop and search against black people has remained strikingly disproportionate. Scandal after scandal has emerged, each offering a new window into the grim discriminatory cultures that exist in pockets of the Met. But it took the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving firearms officer to prompt another wholesale review of Met policing, this time by Baroness Louise Casey.
Casey’s review has confirmed what many Londoners have long known: that the Met police is not only institutionally racist, with black Londoners over-policed and under-protected, but also institutionally misogynistic and homophobic. It’s a dreadful verdict that reflects just how bad things remain in the force. Racial discrimination is shockingly common: a Muslim officer had bacon stuffed in his boots and a Sikh officer had his beard cut off by a colleague. One female officer reported being repeatedly subjected to sexual assault and then labelled a “troublemaker” after she tried to raise the issue; another was repeatedly raped and abused by a male officer she was in a relationship with, which went unaddressed after an investigation that lasted two years. Gay officers have described being targeted with sustained homophobic abuse. And Casey found there was an “endemic culture” of disbelieving victims of rape.
Policing by consent means members of the public absolutely have the right to criticise their police force
There is a fundamental issue at the heart of policing that any leadership strategy has to grapple with. Police officers are responsible for keeping us safe and upholding the rule of law. This makes them some of the nation’s most powerful frontline public servants. The job attracts plenty of decent people who go into policing for the right reasons, but also abusive and unsavoury personalities drawn to the job for the power it offers them over other people. Rooting these people out through robust vetting is absolutely key, as is strong leadership to ensure that harassment, bullying and discrimination are swiftly dealt with rather than allowed to flourish. Without that vetting and leadership, toxic cultures will quickly spread and dominate.
But this rigour has been missing from the Met. Casey found that the force’s vetting procedures failed to root out those who seek to become police officers in order to abuse their power. The misconduct and complaints processes are completely inadequate, meaning red flags like those in the case of Everard’s murderer are missed time and time again. The Met’s culture is “we know best”. This was perhaps no more evident than when former commissioner Cressida Dick reacted angrily to criticism, dismissing “armchair” critics of the Met. But the principle of policing by consent means members of the public absolutely have the right to criticise their police force. In fact, the relationship between the police and the public depends on the police being able to respond to criticism from the citizens it serves.
Reforming the Met is a daunting task. It has a new commissioner, Mark Rowley, who Casey has said she thinks is capable of overseeing change. But she has criticised him for taking issue with her report’s use of “institutional” to describe the racism, misogyny and homophobia observed. Rowley says this is political and unhelpful, even though the Macpherson inquiry set out a clear definition of institutional discrimination – one the Met certainly meets. Casey makes a number of important recommendations but perhaps the most vital is that there must be an ongoing independent review as to whether the Met is achieving the improvements that are so desperately needed.
Raising the working age
Does living longer mean working for longer? It’s a question that governments in wealthy societies are struggling to grapple with, given the unenviable economic equation of ageing populations (fewer working-age taxpayers to fund the pensions and healthcare of those who have retired) and the unpopularity of raising the state pension age. France is currently wracked by protests against President Macron’s plan to increase it from 62 to 64. Here in Britain, ministers are reportedly considering plans to delay the planned increase from 66 to 68 in a decade’s time, in light of the fact life expectancy at retirement has fallen by two years since it was announced.
The hard truth is that politicians will eventually have to find a way of introducing these unpopular reforms. But they must address the social injustices of increasing the pension age in a context where people who have spent their lives in low-paid and often more physically demanding jobs have significantly lower life expectancies than more affluent white-collar workers. The last increase in the state pension age from 65 to 66 more than doubled poverty rates amongst 65-year-olds. So, increases in the state pension age need to be cushioned with generous means-tested financial support for people in their early to mid-60s on low incomes and with caring responsibilities; provisions that have been notably absent from the government’s plans
Sonia Sodha is chief leader writer at the Observer and a Guardian/Observer columnist
