News & Updates

IOPC race discrimination report and revised discrimination guidelines

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 Today, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has issued revised guidelines to improve the handling of discrimination complaints and is highlighting how the police service needs to take immediate steps to safeguard children from adultification during their interactions.    

The guidelines are part of a package of support for policing to assist the drive for further change and are the culmination of more than three years’ of IOPC focused work on race discrimination with over 300 cases analysed.   Integral to the work is the publication of a race discrimination report which sets out systemic issues that should be addressed. In response to our findings, we are calling for policing to implement focused and measurable change for local communities in relation to:    racial disparities and the use of police powers, particularly those involving children.

This should include a focus on improving stop and search, use of force and strip search practices, by providing effective safeguards to mitigate adultification bias and ensure fair treatment  police handling of complaints involving discrimination – ensuring that complaints are handled effectively first time in accordance with the revised IOPC guidelines for handling allegations of discrimination.   

We recognise the efforts across policing to improve the way it handles race discrimination and have seen good progress in some areas including complaint handling – but a lot more needs to be done. Too often Black communities feel over-policed as suspects and under-protected. We want to support the police to improve how they deal with race discrimination, to ensure that everyone can have trust and confidence in policing.  

We are committed to working with policing, police and crime commissioners, communities and key stakeholders to actively combat discriminatory attitudes and behaviours and recognise intersectional experiences so that everyone feels protected and respected, receives a service that meets their needs, and the police are enabled to perform their duties effectively.   

If you would like to discuss this report or our work, please contact our Stakeholder Engagement team.