Met police institutionally racist, misogynistic, homophobic
Discussion
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Was Lucy Letby's nickname amongst her colleagues "Baby Killer"? (Cousin's nickname was the rapist) Had Lucy Letby been previously reported by members of the public for abusing babies (Cousins had been previously reported for sexual offences, not followed up).
No but senior management spent 11 months trying to get her back in the ward despite Frontline staff concerns.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/22/hospit...
s1962a said:
Carl_Manchester said:
The problems in the Met are not a solvable problems, over time, the problem will reduce naturally but you won't ever entirely eliminate problem officers, such is the human conditioning (physical and mental) required to be a police officer in Central London.
Low hanging fruit:- Dodgy whatsapp/social media messages - you get the sack
- Make lewd, racist, homophobic or inappropriate comments - you get the sack
- Act in an unprofessional manner - you get the sack
- Do background checks on all public facing staff to ensure nothing untoward is missed
That would go a long way to reducing some of these issues
Carl_Manchester said:
smn159 said:
I can only guess that those on here looking to downplay this haven't read the report. I'd urge them to do so, even just the summary of the findings at the start.
If more people could be arsed to read even some of the report we'd have fewer stupid sounding 'bashing the police' and 'you have to be a wolf to catch a wolf' type comments.
Maybe.
I can summarise the thread now, after much back and forth, nobody will be able to come up with a solution that will work.If more people could be arsed to read even some of the report we'd have fewer stupid sounding 'bashing the police' and 'you have to be a wolf to catch a wolf' type comments.
Maybe.
I would be happy if all male officers were replaced by female ones, I mean that would be a 'solution' to most of the problems but, its not logistically workable, viable or, legal.
The problems in the Met are not a solvable problems, over time, the problem will reduce naturally but you won't ever entirely eliminate problem officers, such is the human conditioning (physical and mental) required to be a police officer in Central London.
https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/down...
s1962a said:
Four Litre said:
This is by no means making excuses, but bad apples walk amongst us day in day out, whatever your profession. A lot you just don't know about.
For an important institution such as the police force, everything must be done to weed out these bad apples and take a zero tolerance approach to any shortcomings. One racist, sexist, homophobic incident and you are out. No excuses.Four Litre said:
For my first job many many years ago I worked in IT, and had access to the HR mailbox that captures all mails that were deemed inappropriate by the email software. Some of the things captured from people who were just crazy for a work environment. It really gave you an idea of what people really thought and liked. Funnily enough, a lot of the porn was sent by women to their own private accounts.
Did you write this example to counter the inappropriate whatsapp messages sent by the met police, or the sexism that exists?And no I didn't write that to justify any WhatsApp messages. You failed to understand the meaning, which is that its very hard to really understand peoples views at face value, unless they are very open about how they feel, you will only see a façade. Until anyone with extreme views acts may be the only chance you get, which is when its too late.
ZedLeg said:
This idea that you need some s
tty cops to catch criminals is bizarre. How much stty behaviour do you excuse if their performance is good?
Nobody (not me anyway) is saying that cops need to be, or should be, stty cops to catch criminals is bizarre. How much stty behaviour do you excuse if their performance is good?t.There is, I believe, correlation between mental attributes required to be an effective cop and an effective criminal.
Four Litre said:
s1962a said:
Four Litre said:
This is by no means making excuses, but bad apples walk amongst us day in day out, whatever your profession. A lot you just don't know about.
For an important institution such as the police force, everything must be done to weed out these bad apples and take a zero tolerance approach to any shortcomings. One racist, sexist, homophobic incident and you are out. No excuses.Four Litre said:
For my first job many many years ago I worked in IT, and had access to the HR mailbox that captures all mails that were deemed inappropriate by the email software. Some of the things captured from people who were just crazy for a work environment. It really gave you an idea of what people really thought and liked. Funnily enough, a lot of the porn was sent by women to their own private accounts.
Did you write this example to counter the inappropriate whatsapp messages sent by the met police, or the sexism that exists?And no I didn't write that to justify any WhatsApp messages. You failed to understand the meaning, which is that its very hard to really understand peoples views at face value, unless they are very open about how they feel, you will only see a façade. Until anyone with extreme views acts may be the only chance you get, which is when its too late.
Carl_Manchester said:
ZedLeg said:
This idea that you need some stty cops to catch criminals is bizarre. How much stty behaviour do you excuse if their performance is good?
Nobody (not me anyway) is saying that cops need to be, or should be, stty cops to catch criminals is bizarre. How much stty behaviour do you excuse if their performance is good?t.There is, I believe, correlation between mental attributes required to be an effective cop and an effective criminal.
ks but stuff like that is used to excuse bad behaviour.Bear in mind it's a quote from Training Day, about an incredibly s
tty cop excusing what he does as it get's results 
pavarotti1980 said:
Digga said:
2012 Olympics policing. He was tasked with couple of carriers of officers and given an area to look after.
clear to my mate that the Met knew the square root of zero about the communities and people they were supposedly serving. He was appalled.
London for the riots. Met top brass told them not to engage or get out of vehicles in certain areas. They seem to have ignored it and went about engaging with the people out and about. Apparently this was a revelation clear to my mate that the Met knew the square root of zero about the communities and people they were supposedly serving. He was appalled.
Olympics.
I was involved in policing it, there were many thousands of officers deployed and riot vans everywhere. Very easy to walk through areas when you have two carriers and the entire area is swamped with cops
2011 riots
15k officers deployed .. as above
There are some very very challenging places to police in London, that are actually quite dangerous to patrol and take any form of proactive action
There are no “no go areas” but some need planning and resources before attending (one estate on a ground I worked, for any call required a double crewed unit to attend the address, another to guard the entrance to the block, another to guard the vehicles and another to keep the entrance to the estate clear. Every other available unit would go to a RVP nearby) two streets away everything would be fine
It’s very different when you’re a response officer and the only patrol within the area
Some of the guidance given by the Met was eminently sensible and aimed at keeping resources available and deployable ( for what they were there for ) rather than getting tucked up with some other job or wandering into a place where they may have faced confrontation/hostility
As was usual though, the street urchins tend to vanish in the face of a large police presence .. they’ll play another day
Some years ago I knew a lady who trained to be a nurse but left as she couldn't cope with death (although thinking about it there are many nursing posts that you can do that don't deal with death, but that was her excuse), but she would talk about how other staff would joke and dance around corpses.
I also worked with a retired fireman and police man who were one day joking about a train crash they both attended and how they walked down the line and picked up pieces of people. I asked them how can they joke about such things, they shrugged, if you don't joke about these things you won't cope I was told.
I also worked with a retired fireman and police man who were one day joking about a train crash they both attended and how they walked down the line and picked up pieces of people. I asked them how can they joke about such things, they shrugged, if you don't joke about these things you won't cope I was told.
One of the funniest (and best) TV shows is "Generation Kill" which is a true life account of a battalion of Recon Marines at the "point of the spear" in the invasion of Iraq.
As others have said humour is a way of both defusing tension in extremely stressful situations and in creating team bonding.
As others have said humour is a way of both defusing tension in extremely stressful situations and in creating team bonding.
Earthdweller said:
For context, over a quarter of a million people have served in the Met … there has been one that has abducted, raped and murdered a lone woman, just one in 194 years, just one
And how many have acted in ways that might be contrued as racist, misogynistic or homophobic in the last 194 years? As far a I can tell, no-one is accusing the Met of being institutionally abducting, rapist murderers, so that's a bit of a strawman. Nor is anyone suggesting that a quarter of a million officers are wrong 'uns, or even that the majority are. And nor would the lack of an abducting, rapist murderer in the police force, for the next 200 years, be seen as any kind of success.However, one might have hoped that of a quarter of a million, someone might have spotted this particular wong 'un and done something about it before he got as far as he did. As such, the concern is that patterns of behaviour which are not as serious as abduction, rape and murder, if not entirely condoned, have been able to exist in a way that most other large organisations wouldn't tolerate.
I'm of the view that most police officers are good people, who want to serve the public, and do their job to the best of their ability. That may well be the reality, but the issue the Met are facing is not simply about reality, but perception. Telling people that their perception is wrong, when there's sufficient evidence to the contrary, will never resolve that issue. Nor will it help the good officers. It will only look like excuses which, even if justified, won't help one bit towards gaining public confidence, or changing public perception.
At some point they have to admit that, for whatever reason, an environment has existed, in which people with unacceptable views and behaviours have been able to carry on relatively unhindered. As of now, no-one really cares how or why, only that it's acknowledged, and that there'll be a genuine attempt to fix it. Without the former acknowldegment, it's hard to see how anyone can even begin to address the latter.
It may appear otherwise, but I have genuine sympathy for the poliice, but going on the defensive doesn't seem to be a particularly worthwhile endeavour. It's not an easy job, with a lot of challenges, but some some of those challenges come from the very nature of such an organisation. An organisation that is specifically designed to have power and authority over others, will obviously attract some who will abuse that power and authority. That's logically unavoidable, and there's no shame in admitting that reality. It also means that there should be greater efforts to weed such people out as early as possible, and more support for the majority of good officers to stand together and call them out.
I honestly don't know the answer, and don't envy the many good people in the metropolitan police, but the public have a right to a police force they can trust and respect, and the police have a right to be trusted and respected by the public. Currently neither have that, but there's nothing the public can do about it, and so it's encumbent upon the police to fix it. The first step in achieving that is to show clearly that they put the public interest above their own, which won't be achieved by appearing to minimise the concerns. No-one cares if it's just a few bad apples, only that they make the whole orchard stink, and that it's up to the orchard owner to apologise and clear out every last one.
Edited by QJumper on Thursday 23 March 16:20
QJumper said:
... the public have a right to a police force they can trust and respect, and the police have a right to be trusted and respected by the public. Currently neither have that, but there's nothing the public can do about it, and so it's encumbent upon the police to fix it. The first step in achieving that is to show clearly that they put the public interest above their own, which won't be achieved by appearing to minimise the concerns. No-one cares if it's just a few bad apples, only that they make the whole orchard stink, and that it's up to the orchard owner to aplogise and clear out every last one.
Well said. QJumper said:
Earthdweller said:
For context, over a quarter of a million people have served in the Met … there has been one that has abducted, raped and murdered a lone woman, just one in 194 years, just one
As far a I can tell, no-one is accusing the Met of being institutionally abducting, rapist murderers, so that's a bit of a strawman. Nor is anyone suggesting that a quarter of a million officers are wrong 'uns, or even that the majority are. 
smn159 said:
Many of problems are eminently solvable, which you'd know if you read any of the report. Maybe just try the Summary and Conclusions on p9, followed by the Recommendations on p19. These are specific actions that could be taken to improve things. Replacing all male officers with female ones is not one of them, despite your straw man.
https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/down...
Thanks for the link. It made much more realistic reading than the sensationalist reports on the media. In fact I think she should have avoided even publishing the sensationalist stuff which just pushes people to think that the Met is a shower of **** and we would be better without them altogether.https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/down...
It might have been better had they had a man to investigate since there is in the report a failure to understand thatthere will always be some laddish behaviour where there are lads. Banter and leg pulling is normal. The key is limiting it to the harmless because eradicating it or trying to do so will only drive it further underground
Earthdweller said:
QJumper said:
Earthdweller said:
For context, over a quarter of a million people have served in the Met … there has been one that has abducted, raped and murdered a lone woman, just one in 194 years, just one
As far a I can tell, no-one is accusing the Met of being institutionally abducting, rapist murderers, so that's a bit of a strawman. Nor is anyone suggesting that a quarter of a million officers are wrong 'uns, or even that the majority are. 
Retired Black Met officer interviewed on the local news this evening. Had to endure being plimsole whitened at Hendon in order to 'fit in'. Suffered other racist comments and attitudes over the years.
He was clear, the problem isnt only with the bosses - its the 'canteen' culture that exists within the force. Think its been referred to as a boys club in the review report. It'll take some changing.
He was clear, the problem isnt only with the bosses - its the 'canteen' culture that exists within the force. Think its been referred to as a boys club in the review report. It'll take some changing.
Edited by Bigends on Thursday 23 March 19:04
ZedLeg said:
Carl_Manchester said:
SteveStrange said:
the Met does seem to have a bit of a problem.
You need to be a wolf to catch a wolf. The problem may not have a solution.So, just be a human to catch a wolf, Carl.
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