A LACK of appropriate role models\u00a0has made policing an unpopular choice among people from black and ethnic minorities, the Police Federation of England and Wales annual conference has heard.<\/p>\n
Che Donald, of the Federation\u2019s equality sub-committee, described the upper ranks of the service as \u201cmale, pale and stale\u201d. He also warned about a lack of career prospects and the cost of signing up to the service.<\/p>\n
He said:\u00a0\u201cThe Government is not doing itself any favours with austerity and there are problems with job prospects, career progression, promotions and pensions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Donald (pictured) added: \u201cThe police service is not looking attractive to black and ethnic minority candidates because of the current climate in relation to austerity and the constant problems around policing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Black and ethnic minorities make up around 5% of the service, but around 16% of the population, the conference was told.<\/p>\n
In March 2014 the police service was 128,000 police officers strong \u2013 although BME officers made up only 5% of that. This accounts for 6,715 officers \u2013 of which around 3,500 were in the Met.<\/p>\n
Mr Donald said: \u201cThe starting salaries for police constables have gone down \u2013 how can the service expect to recruit more officers from black and ethnic minorities?\u201d<\/p>\n
The starting salary for a police constable is \u00a319,000 \u2013 down from \u00a322,000 in past years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police certificate is also a barrier. People are expected to undertake this in their own time at their own cost,\u201d Mr Donald explained.<\/p>\n
The certificate \u2013 which all police officers must complete if they want to join the service \u2013 costs around \u00a31,000 to apply for and will be a barrier to those from less well-off backgrounds, Mr Donald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShow me the role models and leaders. Show me the BME role models in the upper echelons of the police service. If you look at the top of the Police Chiefs Council, it\u2019s male, pale and stale,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Insp Kam Bria, of the College of Policing\u2019s BME Progression 2018 Programme, warned that it was an \u201coperational policing imperative that we start to do something about this\u201d. He warned that feelings of distrust among communities could simmer and that over time community tensions could erupt.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cHere we are in 2015. We are probably at about 15-16% of a visible minority [in the UK] and that is not including the Slovakian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Romanian, and Polish people who make up two\u00a0million of our population.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we use that data and start projecting forward, in 2050 our black and ethnic minority population will be about 30%. And when it comes to victims of crime, vulnerable people, missing persons, mental health and violence, I think we need to ask the question \u2013 \u2018are we going to meet the needs and expectations of our public and will they trust us as a police service?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
There is also a problem with representation in specialised posts, the conference heard, with under-representation of BME officers in roads policing and minority officers making up just 2.5% of officers in firearms units.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A LACK of appropriate role models\u00a0has made policing an unpopular choice among people from black and ethnic minorities, the Police Federation of England and Wales annual conference has heard. Che\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}