When I first read Shereen Daniels’ report 30 Patterns of Harm, a damning review of anti-Black racism within the Metropolitan police, I didn’t feel outrage – I felt recognition. The report lays bare what Black Londoners have long known: racism in policing isn’t a case of occasional failures. It is structural – and, left unexamined, it reproduces.
I also felt something else: the faint possibility of change. For perhaps the first time, the Met has chosen to see itself clearly. Following claims that the review had been “buried”, the service has finally published Daniels’ report and companion guide. What makes this different from the 1999 Macpherson and 2023 Casey reports is that it turns the lens inward. Those earlier reviews drew on public testimony and external critique, while Daniels’ analysis uses the Met’s own internal correspondence, policies and governance papers to expose how racial harm is reproduced through decision-making, culture and leadership. And crucially, the commissioner allowed it to be released “without dilution or internal sign-off” – a level of transparency that neither previous inquiry achieved. That act of honesty is the beginning of transformation.
