The Chief Constable of Police Scotland has admitted that the force is “institutionally racist and discriminatory”.
Sir Iain Livingstone said prejudice and bad behaviour within the force was “rightly of great concern”. Speaking at a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority on Thursday morning, Sir Iain said: “It is the right thing for me to do, as Chief Constable, to clearly state that institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination exist. Police Scotland is institutionally racist and discriminatory. Publicly acknowledging these institutional issues exist in our organisation is essential to our absolute commitment to championing equality and becoming an anti-racist service.”
Sir William Macpherson’s definition of institutional racism, set out in his 1999 report into the killing of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, is “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin”.
So we may as well add councils, social work departments, children’s homes and schools in places like Rotherham and Rochdale to the list of institutions since, by that definition, they collectively failed as organisations or to provide appropriate or professional service to the victims of “grooming gangs” for the reasons Sir William lays out.
Police Scotland has also come under fire for its “boys club” culture from a former female firearms officer.
Being a police officer is a tough job. It takes a certain type of person with a certain mindset, most of whom will be men and whose only experience of racism is when they have to sit through some “diversity training” course.
They need a strong leader, not someone like Livingstone who drops this bombshell two months before he’s due to retire. Imagine the lack of self-awareness needed to admit all this when you’ve been in charge for five years.
However, we at the Homeland Party offer this piece of advice: when you hear someone in a position of authority using terms like “institutionalised racism”, “systemic” and “racist, sexist, misogynistic” in the same breath, you know you’re dealing with someone with an eye on political office.
Homeland would keep politics out of policing and careerists like Livingstone away from positions of power.
