Police should introduce quotas to increase the number of ethnic minority officers, says Britain’s first and only black chief constable.
Calling for “positive discrimination”, Mike Fuller, formerly Kent’s chief constable and a non-executive director of the Home Office, said Northern-Irish style recruitment quotas for black and ethnic minority candidates could be seen by the community as “righting a wrong”.
He said that black communities felt “overpoliced and underprotected” and warned that without more black and ethnic minority officers, there would continue to be a lack of trust and confidence within the black community in the police service.
Black, Asian and other people of ethnic minorities represent 14 per cent of the population, but only 8.3 per cent of constables. There are no ethnic minority chief constables, only 4.7 per cent chief officers, and just over five per cent of chief inspectors and inspectors.
‘Something radical needs to be done’
“Without something radical happening – and there needs to be political will to do that – the situation is not going to change,” Mr Fuller told Policing TV. “Without a representative service, there won’t be the trust and confidence within the black community in the police service.
“So something radical needs to be done in the the idea of positive discrimination, which we’ve seen happen in Northern Ireland. So there are other precedents for this.”
Northern Ireland police introduced a 50/50 policy to ensure an equal number of Protestant and Catholics recruits as part of the peace process to address the historic under-representation of officers from a nationalist background. As a result, numbers rose from eight to 30 per cent.
Mr Fuller said Northern Ireland’s positive religious discrimination had been successful without a kickback. “At the end of the day, [it] is actually righting a wrong and that’s how it’s been viewed,” he said.
“And I think the same would happen if racial representation was increased and improved and you had a representative police force.”
He warned that black and ethnic minorities’ lack of trust and confidence in the police “made the job of the police a lot more difficult.”
Black communities feel ‘disproportionately’ targeted
Black communities felt they were “disproportionately” targeted not only for stop and search, but also over arrests, prosecutions and sentences, he said.
He backed stop and search but said it needed to be focused on people who were actually carrying knives and guns rather than in a blanket fashion where the police were “abusing their power.”
He cited his own experience as a Met Police Commander leading Operation Trident that successfully wound up predominantly black gangs after winning the support of the black community with intelligence-led stop and searches often based on information from local people.
Mr Fuller said black officers also needed support over the “discrimination” they faced from the public on the streets. “More support is needed so all the effort you put into recruiting people is not wasted in losing those people from the service. Retention is a big issue,” he added.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has proposed that black police officers should be fast-tracked into top jobs to overcome “stubbornly slow” recruitment and has asked the College of Policing to develop such a scheme.
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