10 Lessons from the past? Mistrust, under representation and over-policing

In the second half of the twentieth century, Black and ethnic minority people in some parts of Britain experienced and witnessed:

• over-policing (disproportionate use of stop and search and unjustified arrests) and under-policing (police unwillingness to investigate reports of racially aggravated crimes)
• a defensive and/or half-hearted approach to community race relations by some police forces
• some very significant and public miscarriages of justice involving the police
• large-scale public order disturbances in many places related (in part) to patterns of policing
• an unwillingness or inability within policing to diversify its workforce.

The combination of all of the above has led, in the present, to:

• lower levels of trust in the police among people of Black and Asian heritage, sustained across generations
• police forces which are not fully representative of the communities they serve
• statistics around stop and search and use of force which are taken to indicate problems with over/under-policing.

Knowing this long history helps us understand how the issues facing policing today developed. But are there broader lessons which might be drawn from this history? Arguably, there are three.

First, more than half of the UK’s police officers have fewer than 10 years’ service (Home Office, 2024b). Thus, the majority of police officers currently serving have nothing whatsoever to do with the history you have encountered in this week. They have, however, inherited its legacy. Understanding this history is therefore important for police officers as gives them additional insights into the communities they work with. This history explains why issues like stop and search are so significant for some sections of the community and highlights that exceptional care is required in these emotive interactions.

Second, history shows that lack of trust in the police in Black and minority ethnic people developed over time, in part because of an initial unwillingness of police forces to broaden their recruitment. We can only reflect on how different the situation would be if the Windrush generation had been enthusiastically welcomed into police forces around the country. The persistence of a lack of diversity within policing, and the continued reports of racism within policing, demonstrates that significant change is required to make policing representative in the twenty-first century.

Third, as a broader point, this week has highlighted again how police forces can struggle to make significant changes to inherited practices and processes. In recent decades, there has been a fundamental change in broader social attitudes to equality and diversity. Arguably, changes in policing have come later and slower, lagging behind prevalent social attitudes. While the desire for change within the senior ranks of the police is apparent, so too is the struggle to enact this change.