The Casey report is damning – and the failings go beyond the Met

Editorial: Even if the force were as ‘woke’ as some of its critics accuse it of being, it is also failing on basic policing

A hopeless, perhaps self-interested, complacency at the top of government permits such institutional failings (PA)

It is profoundly depressing that, three decades on from the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and almost a quarter-century after the Macpherson report criticised the Metropolitan Police, the service is once again being described as “institutionally racist”.

It is a stark, disturbing phrase, and one that continues to be controversial, but there is no doubt that Baroness Casey has come to the correct conclusion based on the evidence she has collected about the state of the force today. Indeed, her report, commissioned in the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Everard and a series of other appalling cases, is even more damning than its 1999 predecessor, condemning the Met for being “institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic”.

No wonder, then, that the former commissioner, Cressida Dick, lost the confidence of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and had to resign last year. She gave no indication that she had any conception of the scale of the problems in the force; problems that are mirrored, to varying degrees, in constabularies across the country.

The current commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has said he accepts Lady Casey’s “deeply troubling diagnosis” but is reluctant to use the phrase “institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic” as the idea has become “politicised”. The issues within the force are incredibly serious, and it is a disservice to the public to dance on the head of a pin in such a way.

That is not to say that every police officer in the UK is a bigot; the vast majority are doubtless committed to the brave service of their communities. It is, however, to understand that there are deep-seated – and sometimes widespread – attitudes and behaviours that are not only unacceptable in principle, but prevent the police from doing their job properly and commanding the respect and support of the public.

“Policing by consent” cannot thrive in an atmosphere of suspicion, where police are perceived as an enemy; and yet that is what has been happening. As Lady Casey points out: “It is not our job as the public to keep ourselves safe from the police. It is the police’s job to keep us safe as the public. Far too many ... have now lost faith in policing to do that.”

Despite some efforts to the contrary, the Met, like other police forces, remains overwhelmingly white and male, and apparently prone to a set of social assumptions that have fostered a culture in which “normal rules do not seem to apply or be applied”.

As indicated (albeit on an extreme scale) by the predatory crimes of David Carrick, the murder of Everard, and the appalling revelations about Wayne Couzens, the police in London have not protected their female employees, or members of the public, from actual police perpetrators of domestic abuse, or from those who abuse their position for sexual purposes. As Lady Casey’s report states: “Despite the Met saying violence against women and girls is a priority, it has been treated differently from ‘serious violence’. In practice this has meant it has not been taken as seriously in terms of resourcing and prioritisation.” The fact that Lady Casey has said she cannot rule out the presence within the Met of more offenders like Couzens and Carrick is damning.

There has been an unprecedented drive in recent years to spin how much the police have supposedly changed since the bad old days of thuggery, corruption, and the harassment and framing of minorities. No doubt things may be better than they were when arrogant police behaviour prompted riots in the 1980s, but plainly, progress has not been nearly as consistent as needed – or as it has been eagerly portrayed by senior officers.

The situation is hardly helped by the existence of a group of ministers who believe that inequalities based on racism, misogyny and homophobia are largely confined to the past, are about rogue individuals rather than institutions or cultures, and would melt away if only people stopped talking about them. A hopeless, perhaps self-interested, complacency at the top of government permits such institutional failings. Only rarely do interventions such the Macpherson report and the Casey inquiry challenge the received wisdom.

The Casey report does indeed challenge, and is exhaustive in its litany of shortcomings, including those institutional weaknesses. Even if the force were as “woke” as some of its critics accuse it of being (if only), it is also failing on basic policing.

This is not solely down to the Met, however. Cuts in the Cameron-Osborne-May era pushed experienced local leaders out of the force, shut local stations, weakened borough commands, and virtually destroyed community policing. Now a cadre of hurriedly recruited new and inexperienced officers, hired on the basis of an arbitrary target set by Boris Johnson, are trying to restore the institutional memory and expertise that was so carelessly discarded a decade ago.

Indeed, these problems have also exacerbated the longer-standing cultural shortcomings, as the Casey report reveals: “Recruitment and vetting systems are poor and fail to guard against those who seek power in order to abuse it.”

It will probably take as long as another decade to restore policing in London, and in much of the rest of the country, to the standards expected, re-equipping forces and making the most of the new technologies to fight crime – cybercrime and fraud being two areas in which forces have simply not kept up.

It would be too bleak to contemplate the notion that in 30 years’ time, sexist, racist and homophobic attitudes will still be prevalent among those who purport to serve us. But it is certainly unlikely that this dying government, and this over-promoted home secretary, will do much more than make some suitably sympathetic noises – because they do not believe in the very concept of institutional racism.

There are neither the resources nor the political will to make change happen, or to ensure, in the late William Macpherson’s original words, that the police do not fail to “provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin”.