Note from Annie:

In my efforts to find some positive ways to address the painful gap between the police and the people they serve, I came across this report written by my fellow blogger Matthew Richardson, whom I know as a gifted short story writer and poet. As he notes, he was asked by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research to do the following report. If you follow the links, you’ll find some very interesting concepts such as “policing by consent.” (!)

When I asked Matthew to tell me how he thinks police-community relations are now, he said: “…we have a long way to go in the UK until we are a truly representative service (there were only 11 officers self-describing as Gypsy/Traveller in 2017 in Police Scotland for example), and other BAME groups are similarly underrepresented. It is also only a short time since the Met police were described as ‘institutionally racist’ in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, and some would argue that lessons have not been learned from incidents such as these.

I would argue that progress has been made since these days, but we still have a long, long way to go. Listening, the inclusion of BAME groups in training, and increased recruitment of individuals from these groups are certainly places to start. From my experience in the states, culturally we are miles apart. I can remember going to a big academic policing conference in 2017 where me and one other UK officer were the only ones not carrying a firearm – a totally bizarre experience for me! I’m really hopeful that my research will do its small bit in helping to improve service delivery for Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller groups in Scotland.”