Hire more blacks, Straw tells police sets

JACK STRAW challenged police yesterday to recruit more than 8,000 black and Asian officers in the next decade. The Home Secretary set a target for each force in England and Wales and said he hoped every force would reflect the racial make-up of the area it served.

The Metropolitan Police has been told it should have 5,662 officers from ethnic minorities, the highest target set. In the West Midlands, the figure is 862, with 356 in Greater Manchester and 345 in West Yorkshire.

But Mr Straw told a conference in Southampton that even forces in areas with less than 1 per cent ethnic minority population would be expected to have at least 1 per cent of their officers from ethnic minorities.

Only four forces were declared "on target" for their ethnic minority recruitment - Gwent, Norfolk, Northampton-shire and Suffolk. Nationally, only about 2 per cent of police officers come from ethnic minorities although the minorities are 7 per cent of the population.

Home Office research published to coincide with the conference, on recruitment, retention and progression of Black and Asian police officers, found "institutional racism" was blighting the careers of ethnic minority officers. Black and Asian officers were leaving the force at double the rate of whites. Two or three times as many black and Asian officers were dismissed as whites. Asian officers took five months longer, on average, to be made sergeants, black officers 18 months longer. Black officers take 23 months longer to become inspectors, Asian officers 16 months.

There are 2,191 black and Asian constables out of 97,671 officers at that rank and only six black and Asian superintendents among 1,237.

Mr Straw said he was setting targets and not quotas and there was no question of ethnic minority officers being promoted on anything but merit.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Condon, said he warmly embraced the targets set for the Met and said it was "catch-up time" for the whole of the police service. The Met has been told to increase the number of ethnic minority officers from 865, which is 3.3 per cent of the force, to 5,662 to bring it in line with the 25 per cent ethnic minority population of the area it serves.