A coalition of 26 racial justice organisations has criticised the Metropolitan police for refusing to accept the core finding of the Casey review that the force is institutionally racist.
In an open letter sent to Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Met police, anti-racist groups describe the overhauls set out in the New Met for London plan launched last week as a “missed opportunity” for the force to signal radical change, and acknowledge wrongdoing and deep failures.
The letter was coordinated by the Runnymede Trust and signatories include Inquest, StopWatch, Just for Kids Law, the Traveller Movement, and individuals such as Simon Woolley, the former chief executive of Operation Black Vote.
The Met police were found to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic and in need of radical reform in a landmark review earlier this year.
The report by Louise Casey, commissioned by the Met after one of its officers abducted, raped and killed Sarah Everard, is one of the most damning of a major British institution, and has been described as a “cataclysmic disaster” for the force.
Last week, the Met launched its policing plan for London and the force apologised to the groups, communities and women who have felt let down. The action plan has three main focuses: community crime-fighting, culture change, and “fixing our foundation”, where the Met has committed to better deployment of officers, and to give them the training, equipment and tools they need to cut crime.
The open letter says: “The continued refusal to acknowledge the institutional nature of racism within the Met, alongside proposed plans for further expansion of the scale, practices, and tools it currently employs, will only further entrench disproportionalities in how Black and minority ethnic Londoners are policed.”
The letter points to a recent Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation into the death of a Black man in police custody earlier this month, and an incident, widely shared on social media, of a Black woman who was arrested and detained by Met officers in Croydon in front of her young son after she was falsely accused of not paying her bus fare, as part of a pattern of “deep-seated failures”.
The signatories of the letter call for an equalities impact assessment into the use of databases, predictive policing algorithms and surveillance technologies, such as the gang violence matrix and facial recognition technology, and argue that funding should be directed into evidence-based approaches that tackle the root causes of crime.
Dr Shabna Begum, the interim co-chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, said: “We are at an absolute crisis point with regards to how Black and minority ethnic communities are policed and there is a failure to offer an appropriate, crisis-level response.
“Our communities face punitive and punishing policing that has for decades stripped away confidence and consent. Despite publishing an 80-page plan for reform, these proposals fail to inspire confidence in the feasibility of what feels like yet another series of promises, nor do they set out how the Met can be held accountable in any defined way.”
Begum described the New Met for London plan as “wholly disappointing” and said it “fails to provide a new, concrete way forward”.
“We recognise the need for greater funding, but disagree with where that funding should go; we know that in terms of meeting crime reduction, it is significant and sustained investment into community-based solutions that tackle the root causes of crime,” she added.
A Met spokesperson said: “The commissioner and senior officers recently met with the Runnymede Trust and some signatories of this letter to discuss their concerns. We absolutely welcome further engagement with them. As we have set out in the plan they are responding to, we are determined to do this with communities, particularly those whose confidence in us is low as described.
“We’re determined to make the Met anti-racist, and indeed anti-discrimination in any form. We must transform the organisation, its systems, processes and culture to achieve this.
“We understand the concerns about our tactics and the disproportionate impact these have on Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners. Understanding and reducing disproportionality in how both our use of powers and crimes affect different parts of London’s communities is essential to precise community crime fighting. Our performance framework recognises this with an intent to reduce those disparities. We would be delighted to continue the conversations and actions already started on a stop and search charter, precision targeting of men who commit violence against women and girls and victim feedback.”
