Racism,sexism persists in Brit police service

London, Jan.12: The British police service is still mired in a 'canteen culture' of racism, sexism and hard drinking, the country"s equalities watchdog has warned. The report, by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, reviewed the police ten years after the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, which branded the Metropolitan Police 'institutionally racist'.

According to The Telegraph, it found a huge disproportion of black men on the DNA database, with some thirty per cent on the system compared to 10 per cent of white and Asian males.

And black men are still seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.
The report concluded: "There are still racist police officers and there are still policies and practices that raise serious concerns about their impact on ethnic minority people." The new EHRC report, however, found good progress had been made in employing more ethnic minority officers but parts of the service still retain the "canteen culture".

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) was criticized for failing "to properly demonstrate how it is monitoring the police''s performance on race issues".

ANI