Avon and Somerset chief constable accused of ‘virtue signalling’

Police Federation chairman Mark Loker strongly refuted Sarah Crew’s statement and said it did “nothing to drive change or amend culture” and would “actually drive a divide between our officers and communities”.

In a  damning post on Facebook, Mr Loker said officers and staff would take it that they “were indeed considered racist” despite the Chief Constable insisting she was “not talking about what’s in the hearts and minds of most people who work for Avon & Somerset Police”.

The force’s top officer said on Friday (June 16) that the constabulary was not only institutionally racist but also had a deep-rooted culture of misogyny, homophobia and discrimination against people with disabilities.

She said the system was unfair against Black people and pledged to put it right.

But Mr Loker slammed the comments as a “false narrative”.

He said: “Avon & Somerset Police must have difficult conversations about the issue of racism, but the force is not institutionally racist and making declarations that it is does nothing to drive change or amend culture.

“If this is really about the institution, then we have to recognise that people write processes, people adhere to processes and when we put processes before people, we are feeding a false narrative.”

He said a report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities concluded that misapplying the term racism had diluted and undermined its credibility and seriousness.

DCC Sarah Crews. (Image: Avon and Somerset Police)

Mr Loker said: “Where ‘institutional racism’ is used too casually as an explanatory tool, it can also lead to insufficient consideration of other factors which are also known to drive such differences in outcomes.

“Institutional racism is not the consequence of crime and should not be considered as such.

“If accusations of institutional racism are levelled against institutions, these should – like any other serious accusation – be subject to robust assessment and evidence and show that an institution has treated an ethnic group differently to other groups because of their ethnic identity.

“The commission warned that there are consequences to the misapplication of the term and it can give a false perception or narrative.

“I contend that by our chief declaring Avon & Somerset as ‘institutionally racist’ this will create a false narrative and actually drive a divide between our officers and the communities this is intended to assist.

“I fully agree that policing should be anti-racism. Racism has no place in a modern society, it is singularly divisive.

“I agree that it is no longer acceptable to be a passive bystander, to observe racist behaviour and to do nothing, but if this declaration is to promote confidence in our Black and ethnic minority communities, what does it actually do?

“It does not, in my view, promote brave conversations, it in fact stunts any conversation and becomes a label, nothing more.

“We do not always get it right, but in the absence of any data that supports this position and states that we are ‘institutionally racist’, this is nothing more than virtue signalling.”

Mr Loker said there was no data to suggest officers stopped and searched individuals based on the colour of their skin.

“If we are legitimate in our aim to combat racism and to rebuild or enhance confidence in our constabulary then we have to be credible, brave and honest in our conversations, not placate and feed a false narrative because that is what we believe some communities want to hear,” he said.

“To tackle the fact that Black communities have the lowest trust but also the highest victimisation, we need to talk about these issues, to explain our processes and work with those communities to explain our actions, our powers and necessity for using powers such as stop-and-search, not condemn them without basis.

“It is not helpful to make statements without proper basis or evidence-based reviews that in our opinion will do nothing more than make what is already a hard job harder.

“Sadly it plays into the hands of political ideology and does not go to the heart of the issue.”