Met police institutionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic
Discussion
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Oliver Hardy said:
We had a woman in charge of this sexist organisation for five years and an Asian man in charge for 7 years of this racist organisation.
What Asian man? If you are referring to the Mayor, he is not in charge of the Met. Then there's MOPAC, where Sadiq Khan is the Mayor bit of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) in London, which sets the budget and direction for the MET on behalf of the Mayor, so does Khan have a clue what MOPAC does and nothing to say about the direction bit given it's the wrong direction, and that it's in his name as Mayor?
MOPAC said:
One of the Mayor’s key responsibilities is overseeing the work of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Any sign of a failure in oversight, given the report findings?Earthdweller said:
I’ve read some of the report, not all yet though
I think the report is pretty spot on and isn’t far from what myself and other serving and former officers have been saying on here for years
Set aside the headlines of mysogeny, racism, sexism etc and look beyond that
The train set is broken
Problems highlighted
Recruitment .. not up to standard
Training … not up to standard
Vetting .. outsourced and not upto standard
HR .. outsourced and not upto standard
Front line officers massively overworked under appreciated and not supported by senior management
Front line leaders ( Sgt’s, Inspectors ) the really critical ones, likewise and with workloads and responsibilities beyond their capacity to effectively manage
Promotion process not fit for purpose nor promoting the right people
And so it goes on and on, it’s underfunded and underesourced
Response and neighbourhood policing has all but been abandoned with the BCU ( huge area, no local police Stns ) model not being fit for purpose
But as the report said:
Yes, it’s broken but as above it is still full of decent, honest hardworking staff who really want to do the best they can
I have my views on how it has been broken and by whom and also a view that it really needs to go back to basics starting with vetting, training, robust front line leadership and re establishing local and community policing as a basis
And finally .. this report could be written in most parts for every police force in the land to varying degrees .. it isn’t just a Met thing
Surely therefore the the report should be saying what you said and blaming these at the top of the organisation and these that run it.I think the report is pretty spot on and isn’t far from what myself and other serving and former officers have been saying on here for years
Set aside the headlines of mysogeny, racism, sexism etc and look beyond that
The train set is broken
Problems highlighted
Recruitment .. not up to standard
Training … not up to standard
Vetting .. outsourced and not upto standard
HR .. outsourced and not upto standard
Front line officers massively overworked under appreciated and not supported by senior management
Front line leaders ( Sgt’s, Inspectors ) the really critical ones, likewise and with workloads and responsibilities beyond their capacity to effectively manage
Promotion process not fit for purpose nor promoting the right people
And so it goes on and on, it’s underfunded and underesourced
Response and neighbourhood policing has all but been abandoned with the BCU ( huge area, no local police Stns ) model not being fit for purpose
But as the report said:
Yes, it’s broken but as above it is still full of decent, honest hardworking staff who really want to do the best they can
I have my views on how it has been broken and by whom and also a view that it really needs to go back to basics starting with vetting, training, robust front line leadership and re establishing local and community policing as a basis
And finally .. this report could be written in most parts for every police force in the land to varying degrees .. it isn’t just a Met thing
Pointing to the whole force and taring everyone in it is not fair on the many, vast majority who are trying to do a job. in fact I would argue it does the opposite.
headlights on tv and press like the police are failing woman and children and asking is it safe for a woman or child to approach a police officer, come on!
If I were as police officer in the met now I would be totally disillusioned, yet it could attract exactly the type who shouldn't be in the police.
Derek Smith said:
Oliver Hardy said:
Ian Geary said:
Oliver Hardy said:
We had a woman in charge of this sexist organisation for five years and an Asian man in charge for 7 years of this racist organisation.
I don't know why people are fastening onto these facts as if they somehow matter?.
Have you any ideas on how to remodel the Mets so as to eliminate the culture?
Isn't that what needs to be addressed rather than the gender and race of those in charge?
Has anyone asked these racist, misogynistic, homophonbic people their fears?
Derek Smith said:
Oliver Hardy said:
Ian Geary said:
Oliver Hardy said:
We had a woman in charge of this sexist organisation for five years and an Asian man in charge for 7 years of this racist organisation.
I don't know why people are fastening onto these facts as if they somehow matter?.
Have you any ideas on how to remodel the Mets so as to eliminate the culture?
Isn't that what needs to be addressed rather than the gender and race of those in charge?
If they are not aware of the culture they are not doing their jobs.
If knowing the culture they deem it inappropriate & do nothing they are not doing their jobs.
So either they knew the culture & condoned it or weren't doing their jobs.
Now I don't know the structure, organisation & practices of the Met so it would be very difficult to comment & what specifically the leadership should be doing, but it would appear the tolerance & acceptance of inappropriate behavior needs to be stamped down on hard. Examples of offenders need to be made. Officers who whilst not participating in the behavior, do nothing to stop it need to be dealt with as severly as those whose actual behavior is inappropriate. It's zero tolerance.
Frik said:
Biggy Stardust said:
In Dick's case it was presumably for how well the Stockwell tube episode was carried out; zero police casualties & a lot of newspaper headlines.
You appear to have missed out the execution of an innocent member of the public from your summary. Biggy Stardust said:
Frik said:
Biggy Stardust said:
In Dick's case it was presumably for how well the Stockwell tube episode was carried out; zero police casualties & a lot of newspaper headlines.
You appear to have missed out the execution of an innocent member of the public from your summary. ChocolateFrog said:
Proper hatchet job on the Met.
It's an affront to the thousands just trying to do a decent job to effectively brand them all with the triumvirate du jour.
A few bad apples…It's an affront to the thousands just trying to do a decent job to effectively brand them all with the triumvirate du jour.
The rest of the UKs police forces seem to manage not to have this kind of problem (well, except CNC by all accounts, although they are too small and too far away from the public to generate much interest).
Electro1980 said:
ChocolateFrog said:
Proper hatchet job on the Met.
It's an affront to the thousands just trying to do a decent job to effectively brand them all with the triumvirate du jour.
A few bad apples…It's an affront to the thousands just trying to do a decent job to effectively brand them all with the triumvirate du jour.
The rest of the UKs police forces seem to manage not to have this kind of problem (well, except CNC by all accounts, although they are too small and too far away from the public to generate much interest).
If 0.5% are bad apples then that's over 200 wrong'uns.
GT03ROB said:
Derek Smith said:
Oliver Hardy said:
Ian Geary said:
Oliver Hardy said:
We had a woman in charge of this sexist organisation for five years and an Asian man in charge for 7 years of this racist organisation.
I don't know why people are fastening onto these facts as if they somehow matter?.
Have you any ideas on how to remodel the Mets so as to eliminate the culture?
Isn't that what needs to be addressed rather than the gender and race of those in charge?
If they are not aware of the culture they are not doing their jobs.
If knowing the culture they deem it inappropriate & do nothing they are not doing their jobs.
So either they knew the culture & condoned it or weren't doing their jobs.
Now I don't know the structure, organisation & practices of the Met so it would be very difficult to comment & what specifically the leadership should be doing, but it would appear the tolerance & acceptance of inappropriate behavior needs to be stamped down on hard. Examples of offenders need to be made. Officers who whilst not participating in the behavior, do nothing to stop it need to be dealt with as severly as those whose actual behavior is inappropriate. It's zero tolerance.
One David Cameron was very heavily involved in that and it wasn’t well received and not really implemented in full
Then we have the Blair years where the Politicisation of the Police started, with everything being given targets set by the Gov, then 2010 was a watershed when the person named above took power and took full aim at the police aided by one Teresa May and the control and interference had just got worse and worse .. in fact they set out imo to destroy the Police
I mention the above because they changed the “culture” of Policing .. the obsession with graduates, direct entry leaders, large reduction in supervisors, huge cuts in numbers and a complete withdrawal from communities and a massive move to centralisation
As an example of this
The closure and sale of Police training centres including Hendon for the Met, where recruits spent 5 months in residence observed 24/7 and where any who displayed issues or were deemed unsuitable were got rid of
That was replaced by university degree courses and distance learning where the emphasis was moved away learning the law and how to apply it
At the same time as they dumbed down the initial training they embarked on a programme of recruitment of people with zero experience of policing direct into middle and senior management roles ( who invariably were surrounded by people exactly the same as them with zero/little experience)
These new generation “leaders” and their new political masters, looked at all the small local police stations dotted all over in every community, often with smaller police posts on estates with only a couple of officers based there and they decided that having lots of small police stations with a few officers in each maybe led by an Inspector/Chief Inspector and with its own small CID and local beat officers was highly inefficient
So they closed all the local police stations, sold off the buildings and moved all the officers into big centralised hub stations covering huge areas, centralised the CID into other hubs and did away with all the police posts and dedicated local officers
They also decided that because all the officers were now together in one place they didn’t need all the Sgt’s and Inspectors they had previously to supervise and manage them
In that move they lost all local accountability and even more critically local connections and knowledge
To sum up, each borough in London had two or three separate divisions each with its own resources and led by a Chief Supt with real local accountability
Each of these divisions was grouped into a local district led by an Deputy Assistant Commissioner ( maybe three districts, nine divisions ) and each of these districts was grouped into an area with three/four other districts, in effect its own separate police force led by an Assistant Commissioner with its own dog section, traffic and public order units
The Met had before the reforms into Basic Command Units 8 of these areas covering the 32 boroughs with 7 like spokes in a wheel the 8th covering central London
The Met’s “central units” were completely separate and pretty much run on the same lines as above, in effect a specialist CID force
Special units again were amalgamated and monsters such as the RADP command were formed by merging royalty protection, Diplomatic protection and the Palace of Westminster into one huge unit. Three very different units with very different roles all lumped together
All allowed a massive slimming down of supervision and and Sgt’s went from being responsible for 6/8 PC’s to often managing 30-40 PC’s
Likewise Duty Inspectors went from running one division to running a BCU which covered potentially 6 of the old divisions
It’s akin to having one puppy in your hand and a room full of puppies .. one you can control and manage ..
What it has resulted in is a disconnected and very overworked front line staff and remote, aloof and disconnected senior management and crucially a massive disconnect from the public
As Peel said “ the police are the public, the public are the Police, citizens in uniform etc”
They have thrown away the whole basis and foundation of British policing
What needs to happen?
The Police need to go back to basics on a local based level where local problems can be solved by local officers with real local knowledge both in uniform and CID
The Met doesn’t need to be broken up …it just needs to go back to what it should be and used to be
By centralising everything and removing supervision it has allowed questionable individuals to flourish in a dysfunctional organisation
Yes they need to look at recruitment, vetting, training, promotion and Leadership etc but fundamentally they need to get back to basics
And before anyone says it .. I know it was never a nirvana and the police always had to deal with corrupt, criminal and unsuitable officers, but I do believe the system post early 70’s was pretty good at weeding them out
On this day 6 years ago PC Keith Palmer gave his life protecting London, whilst we remember his sacrifice let’s also remember that 99% of officers are like him, not like another who also served in that same unit and shamed us all
Edited by Earthdweller on Wednesday 22 March 10:44
Having been a member of a police family for decades I feel quite strongly about how policing has been affected.
I do feel the issues in the Met are perhaps stronger than elsewhere.
But everything police do is based on data these days, and that is why so much stuff is done in terms of stop and search. For those involved, horrible, but there is data behind it usually. I am not saying there is not racism in the Met or any police, there might well be.
But it might also come from experience, knowledge. The media are not going to privvy to things the police know, so when people complain the police have little scope for cause or they are giving away what they know.
However, I will acknowledge a few things, I often go for walks late at night to relax, and I have never been stopped by the police in 15 or so years of doing this, I would imagine if I was black this might not be the case, so you can see where the inherent distrust comes from.
I do feel the issues in the Met are perhaps stronger than elsewhere.
But everything police do is based on data these days, and that is why so much stuff is done in terms of stop and search. For those involved, horrible, but there is data behind it usually. I am not saying there is not racism in the Met or any police, there might well be.
But it might also come from experience, knowledge. The media are not going to privvy to things the police know, so when people complain the police have little scope for cause or they are giving away what they know.
However, I will acknowledge a few things, I often go for walks late at night to relax, and I have never been stopped by the police in 15 or so years of doing this, I would imagine if I was black this might not be the case, so you can see where the inherent distrust comes from.
s1962a said:
In my company it just takes one incident and you are out on your ear. There is a zero tolerance approach to any homophobic, sexist, racist behaviour. It should be the same in the police. One incident and you are out.
That's fine (and right) but it's where you draw the line. Can a guy person make a gay joke or is it only homophobic when a straight person makes the same joke.
Or are jokes OK because you can make a joke about race without being racist.
My work is over 90% white male yet the 2 people at work I speak to most are a Sikh man and a gay woman.
I'm sure if HR got hold of our private WhatsApp group we'd all be sacked immediately if it was held up to the same scrutiny as some of the message groups are from the police/students etc.
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