We are still racist, police chief admits

The Metropolitan Police remains "institutionally racist" despite great improvements in the way the force deals with race issues, the commander of Scotland Yard's anti-racist unit admitted yesterday.

In an interview to mark the 10th anniversary today of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Cdr Cressida Dick, the head of the Metropolitan Police's diversity directorate, conceded that Britain's biggest police force was unlikely ever to be free of institutional racism.

"It's very difficult to imagine the situation where we will say we are no longer institutionally racist. It's a long way off," Cdr Dick told The Independent. "It is certainly obtainable to be more sensitive than we are and reduce it further, but the point about racism is it's about the structure of society and power differential and how institutions operate.

She launched a strong defence of the Met's efforts to eradicate racism, arguing that it had transformed the way it dealt with race crime since the disastrous investigation into the stabbing to death of the black teenager by a racist gang in south-east London.

Scotland Yard's reputation was severely damaged by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny's watershed inquiry report, published in February 1999, into the Lawrence debacle, which said the Met and others within the police service were "institutionally racist".

The commander also stressed that many public and private organisations guilty of institutional racism had done little or nothing to change their ways. She believed racist attitudes that would not be considered acceptable in the capital were often tolerated in cities outside London.

Cdr Dick said: "I would say there is not an institution out there that could say, 'We are not racist'. But I think there has been a sea-change and we have changed dramatically. You don't have to go very far to find private and public organisations that have not moved very far down this road.

"I do think we have put more resources into this issue and have come further than many other organisations."

The issue of institutional racism was seen as part of the reason the Met failed properly to investigate the murder of the 18-year-old student at a bus stop on 22 April 1993. It forced the Met to changed the way it dealt with race issues, hate crime, and murders. It also caused a national debate about the level of racism within society and led to other public bodies, such as the Crown Prosecution Service, being condemned as institutionally racist.

The suggestion that the Met ­ the force considered to be the most forward-thinking police organisation in terms of reforms to race relations and investigating race crimes ­ can never completely rid itself of the tag of "institutionally racist" raises questions about the state of other constabularies where race is not given such a high priority.

Cdr Dick, who took over as head of the diversity directorate in May last year, believes London's diversity has worked in the capital's favour and made its residents more tolerant of other cultures. "But you don't have to travel at all far ­ less than 100 miles ­ to hear different attitudes and views being expressed and going unchallenged. A lot of it is ignorance and pure lack of contact and education."

The commander believes two of the biggest race issues the Met will face in the coming years are trying to reach the demanding Home Office target of a quarter of its officers being from visible ethnic minorities by 2007 ­ it currently stands at 7 per cent ­ and addressing the issue of disproportionate number of black and Asian people being stopped and searched.

She said that newspapers linking "Muslims, terrorism, and asylum-seekers" had left some members of the Muslim community feeling "alienated and threatened".