Ethnic minorities disproportionately targeted by criminal justice system, says new report
Avon and Somerset Police have admitted there is a problem and say they are determined to fix it, as a report says black people are 10 times more likely to be searched for drugs
It's hoped a new report - detailing just how disproportionately ethnic minorities are targeted by the criminal justice system - can be a watershed moment in addressing the issue.
That's what the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police has told us, after a report on the problem across our area was published.
Over 125 pages the "Identifying Disproportionality" report, first commissioned in 2018, details the extent to which black and other ethnic minority communities across Avon and Somerset find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
It lays out, using all the available data across the force area, how disproportionate the numbers are.
Black people for example, are found to be 10 times more likely to be searched for drugs, despite evidence from the Office for National Statistics suggesting they take half as much as white people.
We spoke to Chief Constable Sarah Crew at an event unveiling the report on Tuesday night (March 29).
"I think I've been aware of this being an issue for quite a lot of my police service actually," she said.
"As our communities have changed, we need to make sure that our services are fair and that they have the confidence of all of our communities so, it's become a more and more pressing and critical issue that we've got to deal with."
The report looks at six different areas of the criminal justice system including prisons and the youth system as well as Stop and Search, and examines to what extent ethnic minorities are disproportionately caught up within them.
In a foreword at the beginning of the report former Chief Constable Andy Marsh, who held the role when it was commissioned, says "significant disproportionality exists...which cannot yet be explained."
His replacement Ms Crew, called the report "a really important start" in addressing the problem.
"Action has to follow," she said.
"I think it's critical for ongoing confidence in policing and in the criminal justice system and without either of those things our society isn't the kind of society that we want."
Chief Constable Crew will now chair a working group including representatives from all elements of the system, which will be tasked with ensuring the 83 recommendations made in the report, are put into practice.
It calls, for example, for Avon and Somerset Police to review their policy for drug related stop searches and develop a new approach that address how disproportionately the black community is currently targeted.
Desmond Brown, who describes himself as an "activist", was in charge of putting the report together.
He told us the issues highlighted have existed in communities across the country "for 60 years".
"The idea of this report was to baseline where we're at so we can build an action plan to move forward," he said.
"Communities have been gas-lighted for a long time around actually, 'is it true, or you've got a chip on your shoulder, it's this', but actually we're starting to have the hard evidence that yes, this (the problem) is there."
Also at the event was Museji Takolia who chairs Bristol City Council's Commission on Racial Equality.
He told us there is a lot of work to do.
"The policing of black people in this country has been an issue that the black community has talked about for a long time, and now and again the horrors of its failures come to life with serious injustices or even deaths in custody," he said.
"Our opportunity is to do something different and better, so I welcome the report, but I want our ambitions to be far beyond just identifying disproportionality."
We asked Chief Constable Crew why such a report has only now been put together.
"I think these (issues) have come up periodically," she said.
"But I feel that there is a moment now, where we hear, we know, the facts are there, we're hearing the lived experience, but we're also seeing the data and I can't speak for previous leaders but it's fundamental to my role as the Chief Constable to keep that bond of trust between our communities and our police really intact and at the moment it feels like that bond is under a bit of threat.
"That's why I think this is critical."
You can read the report in full by clicking here.