Cannock & District Club member Jackie Prince recently attended and online seminar presented by Kings College London, on “Women’s Experiences of Policing and Justice – how can we restore trust?”. Here she gives us her personal take on the event.
Women’s Experiences of Policing and Justice – how can we restore trust? was an online seminar featuring some of the leading voices in the arena of justice and policing.
The Panel members included:
- Baroness Louise Casey – Author of the review of standards in Metropolitan Police
- Dr Wanda Wyporska – CEO, Black Equity Organisation
- Dr Hannah Siddiqui – Head of Policy, Campaigns & Research, Southall Black Sisters
- Lady Edwina Grosvenor – Prison philanthropist & founder of One Small Thing
- CHAIR – Julia Gillard – Chair Kings Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. (KGIWL)
- Introduced by Professor Joni Lovenduski of KGIWL
Dr Caitlin Schmid of KGIWL presented a report she had co-authored entitled “Measuring gender equality in the UK: data on violence against women and girls”. The report sought to review the data landscape on VAWG using the UK Gender Equality Index across 374 Local Authority districts across the UK.
The types of violence were split into four categories:
- Physical
- Psychological
- Sexual
- Honour based
The main issue was that very little crime data is measured by gender. This was not enough to be included in the dataset.
Click on this link to access the report (PDF).
The panel members then each gave a short presentation:
Baroness Louise Casey
Reported on her time reviewing behaviour in the Met. It took her 14 months, longer and more difficult than she had expected.
She reported that many of the male officers she encountered thought that it was an affront to be questioned on procedures, particularly when asked for data on specific gender based crimes.
In order to regain the trust police need to start by understanding the disparity in society and listen to evidence that women and disadvantaged groups are disproportionately let down.
She said that there is a huge disparity of how reports of missing women and girls are dealt with. She said that if Nicola Smallman & Biba Henry had been white middle class women, they would have been looked for much sooner. She questioned how a 14 year old girl who was going missing from care multiple times could be classified as ‘wayward’
She also said that following a series of damning reports on Rotherham’s handling of CSE, funding was focussed on giving social workers training on how to respond to Ofsted inspections rather than on improving the service they gave.
She said that in reported incidents of police officer perpetrated domestic violence, 84% are No Further Action.
She gave the example of David Carrick – police officer and serial rapist. Her team found that there were 19 recorded incidents of misconduct relating to him in the Metropolitan Police’s system, he had committed 2 offences before he joined the force and 2 further offences while he was a probationary constable. All of these incidents had not been collated by the Met.
Dr Hannah Siddiqui
A major issue is the failure of the police to acknowledge there is institutionalised racism and misogyny.
There is a large problem with migrant women who have uncertain immigration status failing to report DA and sexual offences because they are often threatened with deportation.
There is also a problem, particularly in the black community with over-policing and under-policing
An example of over-policing is the disproportionate number of black males stopped and searched, and an example of under-policing – police are often reluctant to get involved in incidents of honour based violence due to cultural/religious sensitivity. She gave the example of Banaz Mahmod who was murdered by her father, uncle and three other men despite having reported incidents to the police on five separate occasions
Again, she made the point that it was difficult to prove that racism and misogyny exists if there is no specific data available.
Lady Edwina Grosvenor
There are approximately 4,000 women in the prison system. This makes up 4% of the prison population. Currently there are more incidents of violence, self-harm and suicide than ever.
She said that again there is a huge lack of specific data about female prisoners and is concerned that laws and policies are being made without essential information. An example of this, she asked one Minister of prisons how many pregnant women were in custody, to be told, they didn’t know as they don’t record this. Getting this data would be one way of restoring trust
Another would be if mistakes are made – staff and the system are held to account. This does not happen presently
She said that often women are given custodial sentences as there is no safe place for them to be remanded. This often means that as women are more often the primary carers, children are put into care during her sentence.
Her organisation One Small Thing has set up such a place in Hampshire called Hope Street. Please look at this site it is amazing!
Dr Wanda Wyporska
She said that change and revolution doesn’t come with a good policy paper. There is a need to get the policing sector on board.
She said that black people have been saying for decades that there is a problem with trust in the police. It has taken the murder of a middle class white woman to make people take notice.
She summarised:
- Black people do not and have never trusted the police
- There is an issue of adultification of black children
- There is a need to create a society where we don’t need the current level of policing – while society is so unequal this will never happen
- She also said that we should question what attracts a disproportionate amount of misogynists and racists to policing
We also should not allow the police to ‘mark their own homework’
It is her belief that at the moment the Metropolitan police are not policing by the consent of many of her community.
If you could make one wish to promote trust in the police, what would it be?
The panel were then asked if they could cast a spell for the government to do one thing to promote trust in the police, what would it be?
- Lady Grosvenor – Commission and produce good, robust data
- Dr Wyporska – Focus on cross departmental strategy to reduce inequality
- Dr Siddiqui – End the hostile environment
- Baroness Casey – Get serious about tackling VAWG and boys and get better at catching more offenders and holding them to account. She gave the statistic that in London the conviction rate for rape is 9%. This means 91% of alleged rapists get away with it. She says that Operation Soteria should be mandatory across all forces. This is where they should start – you can learn more about Operation Soteria here.
Questions from the floor and final thoughts
There were a number of questions from the floor, mainly to Baroness Casey. In her answers she advocated the creation of Women Safety Units run by women.
She was also asked what she thought about Commissioner Mark Rowley not accepting that the force was institutionally racist. Basically she thought that he had missed a trick and that this was stupid (her words!)
The panel were then asked for one last thought:
Baroness Casey – Don’t lose hope
Dr Siddiqui – Understand intersectionality*
Dr Wyporska – To do far more work on intersectionality
Lady Grosvenor – If you can’t change a system, build your own!
*Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
This is an overview of the seminar and does not contain everything that was covered. Overall it painted a particularly bleak view of policing in London with many more examples of inequality. Personally the most depressing statement for me was by Dr Wyporska who said that most black people had never had trust in the police, so the question on how to restore it was academic.
To see the seminar in full please click on this link YouTube Channel
Jackie Prince, February 2024