Met police’s culture makes racial harm ‘inevitable’, internal review finds | Metropolitan police

An internal review found that the “racial harm” inflicted on black people by the Metropolitan police was “institutionally defended” by its leadership and culture that shielded it from real change.

Dr. Shereen Daniels’ report, released Friday, is based on internal documents and evidence; The Met responds by acknowledging long-standing evidence of racism and discrimination within Britain’s greatest power.

Daniels told the Guardian the review was the first to focus on the Met’s “anti-blackness” scandal rather than an individual scandal, concluding that the force’s design “makes it inevitable that racial harm will be repeatedly repeated”.

The report, called the 30 Harm Model, comes two years after the Met came under attack for Louise Casey’s investigation, which found the Met was institutionally racist; This was a finding that the commissioner, while acknowledging systemic failures, refused to accept.

The report says: “Anti-black outcomes in policing are not accidental. They are entrenched. And they have been named repeatedly by grieving families, frontline police officers, unions, activists, whistleblowers, campaigners and official investigations.”

At the key flashpoint of stop and search, he says, the Met caused suffering in black communities and was the starting point for suspicion. “The Met doesn’t wait for wrongdoing. It expects justification,” he says.

Force and pressure tactics are more likely to be used against black people than against white people. The report states that “stop and search turned streets into checkpoints” and that the Met considered “blackness itself a possible cause”.

Daniels said of his report: “It examines the institution itself, showing how the Met’s systems, governance, leadership and culture cause racial harm while also protecting the institution from reform. It is not an explanation of individual events, but a diagnosis of the structures that make racial harm a consistently recurring pattern.”

Daniels said the Met has a “sophisticated repertoire” for preventing change. Its report is the latest in a long line of inquiries that have criticized the Met and been followed by little or no lasting reform.

The Macpherson report into the failures that freed Stephen Lawrence’s racist killers revealed in 1999 that the force was plagued by institutional racism.

In the report, Daniels criticizes Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley for refusing to use the term “institutional racism”, claiming it is political and vague.

“Openness is framed politically in this way, and the power to name the harm is surrendered to institutional convenience,” the report says.

Daniels added: “This study shows how institutional racism works in practice. It traces how racial harm is embedded in systems, behaviors and leadership norms that normalize discrimination and protect the organization from the consequences. The question is no longer whether the Met can say these words, but whether it can change the cultural, leadership and operational conditions that make those words true.”

Following an undercover BBC investigation into Charing Cross station in October, racism and misogyny were revealed in the Met and police officers have already been sacked.

But Daniels told the Guardian the scandal was far from isolated: “Charing Cross… is a product of the culture of the Met and the way it was designed.”

Rowley, who is in the third year of a five-year term in which he has promised wholesale reform, said: “Dr Daniels’ report is powerful. It highlights the need for further systemic, structural and cultural change. “I wanted a review focused on the Met and black communities, which challenges us to go further towards becoming an active anti-racist organisation. “London is a uniquely global city and the Met will only deliver policing through genuine consent when it is inclusive and anti-racist.

“Initiatives like this A New Met for London and the London Race Action Plan are helping us make progress. Levels of trust in the Met have risen by 10 per cent in two years, but still lag behind others, according to a Black Londoners report.

“Our expectation is that leaders will drive this change with their teams and be held to account. When it comes to any form of individual discrimination, including racism, our commitment is clear: we continue to deliver the largest corruption cleanup in British policing history to eliminate those who don’t belong.”

But the National Black Police Association said the commissioner himself was blocking change: “Just two years ago, Baroness Casey laid out the same pattern of abuse, denial and harm. “But instead of progress, we have seen the situation worsen, with trust between black officers, staff and communities declining and continuing to decline.

“The commissioner created an echo chamber around himself, surrounded by people who reassured him that progress was being made, while also maintaining the structures within the service that enabled institutional racism to persist.”

Sadiq Khan, spokesman for the London mayor who oversees the Met, said: “It is clear that there are still systemic and cultural issues within the force that have not been addressed.

“The mayor is clear that Sir Mark and his senior leadership need to reshape their approach to accelerate the pace of cultural reform and deliver the necessary structural change across the force.”