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Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau
Promoting Harmonious Police/Multicultural Community Relations in Australasia |
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NewsApril 2002 Community involvement in Police training: Recent initiatives in the UKDr Robin Oakley
As is well known, over the past half-century Britain has become the home of a substantial and varied ethnic minority population originating from the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia and other parts of the former British Empire. Alongside its success stories, this continuing development of Britain into an increasingly multi-ethnic society has also had its difficulties. These have included problems in the relation between minorities - especially young black people - and the police. Following the Brixton Disorders in South London in 1981, the official Report by Lord Scarman recommended (amongst many other things) that all police officers in Britain should receive training in community and race relations - not only as recruits but throughout their professional careers. This recommendation was then elaborated in a more radical and comprehensive report on Community and Race Relations Training for the Police produced by a Working Party set-up by the Police Training Council in 1983. With a membership which included some of the most experienced members of the black community, the Working Party's thinking on many issues was well ahead of its time including, for example, its recommendation that "institutional racism" should be addressed in police training. Specialist Support UnitsSince 1983, the British Home Office has established three successive 'specialist support units' to promote police training on race issues and many specific initiatives have been undertaken by the police themselves. There was, however, for a long while, a lack of effective coordination and follow through for these various initiatives, so that progress has tended to be slow and, at best, uneven when viewed from a national perspective. It may have been shocking but hardly surprising then that the police officers questioned at the Lawrence Inquiry (the Inquiry into Matters Arising from the Murder of Stephen Lawrence, the young black teenager killed by a gang of racist white youths) stated that they had not received any training on race relations' issues. It is only now, after almost twenty years, and following the new impetus provided by the Inquiry Report, that National Police Training at Bramshill is finally introducing standards and a national strategy to ensure that race issues are addressed effectively throughout all core police training. Of all the recommendations originating from the 1983 Working Party Report, the most neglected has been the recommendation proposing the involvement of 'lay contributors' from minority ethnic communities in police training. With few exceptions, police training establishments have traditionally proved extremely reluctant to enter into genuine partnerships with community groups for help in delivering community and race relations training. Apart from inviting community leaders to give talks on an occasional basis, police trainers have usually preferred to 'do it themselves'. Community experience and skills have been ignored (or found too threatening), and opportunities to generate trust and confidence with the ethnic communities have been wasted. European ProgrammeA European funded programme has been operating for two years both in Britain and Europe to encourage police training on racial and multi-cultural issues, and to promote the involvement of non-governmental oganisations (NGOs) and community groups in this area. The NGOs And Police Against Prejudice (NAPAP) programme has provided funding directly to NGOs to undertake local, regional and/or national level initiatives and also to promote the exchange of experience and mutual learning through tansnational workshops. Eleven local projects were established in nine European countries: Austria, Belgium (French/Dutch speaking), Denmark, France, Germany (Berlin/Frankfurt), Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the UK. (The Danish component of the NAPAP Programme was described in an article in NPEAB News No 7). Racial Equality ControlsThe specific aim of the UK Project has been to develop ways of enhancing the direct involvement of contributors from minority ethnic communities in police training on racial and ethnic issues. Initially sponsored by the national Commission for Racial Equality, the UK project was coordinated by Reading Council for Racial Equality. 'Racial Equality Councils', as they are generally known, are local voluntary sector bodies which receive a combination of national and local government funding to promote racial equality in their local areas. Reading CRE had already established a partnership with the national Police Staff College at Bramshill to involve contributors from local minority ethnic communities in some of its training courses. The UK Project provided for this work to be strengthened and extended to other training programmes at Bramshill, including increasing recruitment of community contributors by providing briefing workshops and through the appointment of a part-time Training Coordinator at Reading CRE. Greenwich Council for Racial EqualityA second component of the UK Project has been based at Greenwich Council for Racial Equality. The Council entered a partnership with the Metropolitan Police to contribute to training in the area covered by the London Borough of Greenwich. This partnership provided for Greenwich Racial Equality Council to contribute to the training of three groups of officers: new recruits, existing officers, and specialist staff in the local 'Racial Incidents Unit' (now 'Community Safety Unit). As in Reading, community contributors have been recruited, a team formed, and briefing workshops provided for them. The Borough includes areas where there have been a number of racially motivated assaults and murders, including that of Stephen Lawrence. A major focus in this training has, therefore, been on improving police performance in dealing with racial incidents. With its strong emphasis on community participation and partnership, the approach adopted in Greenwich has provided a lead model for the programme of local training on race issues that is now being implemented throughout London's Metropolitan Police. National ConferenceBy way of conclusion to the NAPAP Project, Reading Council for Racial Equality together with its partners have organised a national conference to disseminate the results of the UK Project. This conference was held on 30 March 2000 at the Police Staff College at Bramshill. Representatives of police services and Racial Equality Councils/community organisations from across Britain attended the conference. We were also appreciative for the attendance and input by Mr Ivan Kolarik, Executive Director of the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau and Superintendent Mick Van Heythuysen from the Northern Territory Police. Keynote speakers included Mr Trevor Hall (Racial Equality Adviser to the Home Office, and a past visitor to NPEAB), Chief Constable Tony Burden (Vice-President of the Association of Chief of Police Officers and Chair of its Race Relations Committee), and Mr Bob Purkiss (Member of the Commission for Racial Equality and Vice-Chairman of the European Monitoring Centre against Racism). The scope of the conference was not restricted to training but covered community involvement in a wide range of areas of police activity. The aim was to identify principles and examples of good practice, and to disseminate these extensively by means of a conference report. The basic premise of the UK Project, and indeed of the NAPAP Project as a whole, has been that improving relations between police and minority communities is not a task that police can achieve on their own. It requires an open, honest and equal partnership between both sides. It also requires the participation by the local civic authorities, which now in Britain have statutory responsibilities under the recent Crime and Disorder Act. In both Reading and Greenwich, the local councils have been active partners in the NAPAP Programme and have helped to formalise public, multi-agency commitments on policing and community safety issues in the form of the 'Reading Declaration' and the 'Greenwich Accord'.
Both these were inspired by the Rotterdam Charter Policing for a Multi-Ethnic Society, which aims to set out a vision and set of standards to be aspired to across Europe. This emanated from a Europe wide conference held in Rotterdam in 1996, and its promotion is now supported by an international foundation based at the Rotterdam Anti-Discrimination Council. As a result of these and other initiatives such as the local training project undertaken by myself and Shelley Collins in Hammersmith, West London, models of 'good practice' for tackling many of the failures in police-community relations identified by the Lawrence Inquiry Report are now readily available. What is less clear is whether there is the political will in government and police organisations to actually implement these across Britain and, indeed Europe generally. Once certain lesson from past experience is that there will need to be continued pressure and participation from community associations and anti-racist groups to help ensure that verbal commitments are translated into real and enduring organisational change. Regrettably Britain still lacks a national body such as NPEAB which can bring together the various stakeholders and develop shared commitments and joint programmes for moving forward. Hopefully we will get there one day! Dr Oakley can be contacted at: Oakley@easynet.co.uk Copies of the UK NAPAP Project can be obtained from: Rajinder Sohpal
or by email to: reading.cre@btinternet.com References
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Dr Robin Oakley is a former academic sociologist who now works as an independent consultant on racial equality issues both in Britain and across Europe, and who has been involved in police training since the early 1980's. He acted as consultant/evaluator to the NAPAP Project at both UK and transnational levels. |