Letter to our Black communities
Chief Constable Amanda Pearson has issued a letter to the county’s Black communities acknowledging institutional racism within the organisation and providing reassurance about the steps the Force will be taking to deliver fair and equitable policing to all.
You can find the letter in full below:
Dear community member,
I wanted to write to you to tell you about the important steps Dorset Police is taking to improve Black people’s experience of policing.
It is our vision for Dorset to be a safe county for everyone, where we strive to deliver fair and effective policing to all our rich and diverse communities. However, we know our Black communities have been telling us for far too long that we have not been getting this right.
As an organisation, we have sought to understand how we can ensure that all our communities receive the same high level of service, so I commissioned several reviews to explore how policing serves Black people in Dorset. This included examining a broad evidence base to understand our data, listening to what our workforce has told us in focus groups, learning about the experiences of our ethnically diverse colleagues and hearing what you, our Black communities, have said.
When we bring all of this information together, it clearly demonstrates that Black people are over-policed, under-protected, under-represented and have more negative experiences of policing in Dorset. I therefore am writing to acknowledge institutional racism within our organisation.
Having been here for over a year and a half now, and got to know so many of my workforce, I do not, hand on heart, believe that I am leading an organisation where the majority of our officers, staff or volunteers hold racist views or act in overtly or intentionally racist ways. Therefore, there must be something in our systems, policies and processes that creates this unfairness and inequality, amounting to institutional racism.
Tackling institutional racism will require us to explore deep into our organisational DNA, whilst reflecting on personal biases and preconceptions to ensure that they do not influence our professional decisions.
I believe this is likely to be part of the cause as to why we haven’t always delivered an equally fair and effective service to our Black communities, and I apologise on behalf of Dorset Police for where trauma and harm has been and continues to be caused to Black people and communities as a consequence.
I see this decision as an important step in accepting and acknowledging where we are as an organisation. I want to thank those of you who are already working with us to improve our understanding of why this is the case and shape what we will do to make meaningful change. We are listening and will strive to do better.
Dorset Police is made up of dedicated officers, staff and volunteers who come to work wanting to ensure that Dorset is a safe country for everyone by being tough on crime, keeping people safe and putting victims and witnesses first. I know that they will want to put their collective energy into helping us to become a truly anti-racist organisation.
Key to delivering a high level of service to all of our communities is ensuring those who undermine the communities’ trust through their unprofessional, discriminatory or unethical behaviour, have no place in Dorset Police.
As a force, we have been working hard to make progress in this area, but we know we need to do more. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the commitments we will be focusing on over the coming months to drive forward change:
Dorset Police Race Action Plan
We are launching our Dorset Police Race Action Plan, which details our commitment to reforming and improving Black people’s experience of policing here in Dorset by eliminating race disparity and becoming an inclusive and anti-racist organisation.
I am grateful to our Black community members who have co-designed it with us to ensure we are focusing on making tangible changes in areas that really matter. Their ongoing involvement will help us to bring this plan to life and ensure it is more than words on a page.
Our plan has four clear aims:
- Eliminate racial disparity.
- Improve Black people’s experiences of policing.
- Become an inclusive organisation.
- Become an anti-racist organisation.
You can read more about our freshly published plan here: https://www.dorset.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/force-content/dorset/about-us/race-action-plan/dorset-police-race-action-plan-delivery-2-24-26_v11.pdf
Inclusive Leadership Programme
I know that achieving meaningful change requires all leaders to ensure they are committed to creating an inclusive culture where our staff can thrive and develop and are aware of the impact their leadership has on the way our service is delivered to you. Over the last year we have invested in developing and delivering an innovative Inclusive Leadership Programme to all supervisors.
This ongoing programme provides our people with the support and tools they need to be ethical and inclusive leaders, who demonstrate the highest level of integrity, standards of professional behaviour and take robust action when necessary. By ensuring these high levels are maintained, our communities can have confidence in our ability to provide fair and ethical policing to all.
Topics include microaggressions, unconscious bias, privilege and allyship.
Feedback has shown that 85 per cent of attendees strongly agreed/agreed that the programme improved their awareness of others’ lived experiences and the impact on them, 72 per cent agreed/strongly agreed that it enhanced their awareness of minority groups and 90 per cent said it had given them the tools and understanding for improving inclusive leadership and how it connects with equality, diversity and inclusion.
I hope that by continuing to invest in our leaders, all our communities will start to see and feel real changes on the ground in the way policing is delivered.
Positive Action strategy
I believe that having a diverse workforce, which represents the people and communities we serve, strikes at the very core of the principle of policing by consent. This is why we remain committed to ensuring we attract, recruit, develop and retain key talent to meet current and future skills gaps.
In a bid to increase diversity within the organisation, we have a Positive Action Team who will continue to carry out targeted recruitment activity to visit and engage in areas of high ethnic diversity and hold regular webinars and support programmes for potential candidates to learn about opportunities in policing.
Internally we will support those colleagues from ethnically diverse backgrounds who are seeking career progression and build an allyship programme to enhance, support and amplify their voices, interests and activities.
You may well have already seen our Positive Action Team within your community, but you can find out more about them by visiting: https://recruitment.dorset.police.uk/positive-action
You can also find out more about where they will be by following them on X @PolicePosAction
Dorset Ethnic Police Association (DEPA)
We have a well-established staff association that provides support to around 50 police officers, staff, special constables and volunteers from a wide range of ethnic and international heritages and are positioned to have a voice in shaping the Force to become an inclusive and anti-racist organisation.
As Chief Constable, I will ensure they are heard and that they have the time and space alongside their busy day jobs to contribute and be involved in such important areas of policing.
Over the coming year we will be working with them across a number of our Police Race Action Plan workstreams. This includes the allyship programme to amplify the voices of our ethnically diverse colleagues, as key members of the Dorset Police Race Action Plan Group to help set the direction of the plan and act as a critical friend and bring diversity of thought as we review our policies, processes and practices.
Stop and search and using force
Stop and search are unique powers for policing and, if used fairly and effectively, can help keep people and our communities safe. However, we know those occasions when they are not used fairly can have a significant detrimental impact on trust and confidence in policing, especially for our Black communities.
The Lammy Review into the treatment and outcomes of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system identified a core principle for all criminal justice agencies around disproportionality: explain or reform.
I am aware of the work Dorset Police has undertaken over the last few years to try to understand and explain why Black people in Dorset are more likely to be stopped and searched, and to address this. Whilst the picture may have improved, the disproportionality still remains and we cannot fully explain why. Therefore, we have to reform the way we use stop and search, and we have to do this together with our Black communities.
We are making changes to our officer training to ensure they include the lived experiences of members of Black communities in their decision making. Our communities will also be involved in the development of this training.
We will ensure we have effective internal and external scrutiny processes and that all identified learning is embedded across the organisation. We will also introduce ‘Stop and Think’ principles for officers when using their policing powers to encourage them to consider the impact of bias, stereotypes or assumptions and generational trauma and history during their decision-making process.
- Our training on use of powers now includes an update on reform practices and any occasions when officers do not use body worn video during a stop and search encounter will be escalated and understood.
- We remain committed to being open and transparent about how often we are using stop and search and what the outcomes of that were. These are published on our Force website: https://www.dorset.police.uk/police-forces/dorset-police/areas/stats-and-data/stats-and-data/stop-and-search-performance-report/
- The findings of our public scrutiny panels, who view body worn video of stop and search interactions, are also published online: https://www.dorset.police.uk/police-forces/dorset-police/areas/stats-and-data/stats-and-data/stop-and-search-scrutiny-panel/
Call it Out campaign
We know the vast majority of our people are professional and do not demonstrate unacceptable behaviour or hold racist views or act in overtly or intentionally racist ways, but there is a minority who do, and we do not want them in policing. To reinforce this, we are continuing to promote our Call it Out behaviours campaign to root out those who are not fit to serve.
This campaign reminds everyone working or volunteering for the Force of their personal responsibility to call out unacceptable behaviour. There are multiple routes in which they can do this, including an anonymous reporting system.
All new starters are made aware of the Standards of Professional Behaviour and Code of Ethics and receive an input on this when they arrive in the organisation. It is not good enough to be a bystander in Dorset Police: our staff have a responsibility to speak up and to challenge behaviour that undermines your trust in us.
Community involvement
It’s important that we have empathy and respect and listen to how our Black communities are impacted by policing. That’s why we are widening who we work with, to understand and address each of the areas of disparity and concern.
Not only will our community members be helping us to deliver our Police Race Action Plan through the Dorset Race Action Plan Group, we will also be inviting community members into areas of policing, to observe and then provide advice, guidance and recommendations as to how we can deliver an even better service. We have already demonstrated our aspirations, having invited community members into the organisation to observe and scrutinise our intelligence delivery and involving them in the delivery of our Police Race Action Plan Senior Leaders’ Event.
You can also help us by being part of an independent advisory group, a member of our Stop and Search Scrutiny panels, observe our training or join officers on a patrol shift. To express an interest, please email LegitimacyTeam@dorset.pnn.police.uk
I hope the above information has shown our determination and commitment to improve Black people’s experience of policing, eliminate racial disparities and become an inclusive and anti-racist organisation that you can have trust and confidence in. I am committed to this work being meaningful to our communities, as well as our workforce, so we will be publishing regular updates on our progress and I will ensure this is circulated to community leaders.
The Police and Crime Commissioner and I have discussed my decision at length – he supports this position, and I will be keeping him updated on this work as it progresses.
We know we have a long way to go and this will take time, but we cannot do this alone, so I encourage you to work alongside us to help the Force achieve its ambition. To get involved, please make contact with our Legitimacy Team on the email address above.
Yours sincerely,
Chief Constable Amanda Pearson
