Police forces must be representative of communities they serve – Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, speaking about the lack of BAME representation within police forces twenty years after the Macpherson Report, said:

“People seem to forget that after Macpherson, police chiefs from the 43 forces in England and Wales agreed on a government target that there must be the same proportion of black officers in their ranks as in the community that they served. They were given a decade in which to achieve that, but none of them ever did so. Twenty years later, there is still a huge shortfall. 

“In this country, we have prided ourselves on policing by consent. But that means police forces must be representative of the communities they serve. In addition to undermining the police by cutting their numbers, the Tories have failed to act decisively in this important area.”