Fightback

Abstract

In 2003, Mark Daley, a British journalist working for the BBC, went undercover to investigate racism among the police. He applied and was accepted at the Manchester police academy, where he received training, finished the course, and even served on the street briefly as a police constable. He secretly filmed and recorded discussions with many of his fellow trainees and documented the racist statements and views that some of them held—positions that are grounds for immediate dismissal under the rules of police services. After the release of his report, three of the officers were suspended, and five officers resigned. Though sensationalized as is often the case with British documentaries, the program found a deep resonance among the United Kingdom’s black and Asian communities, which have long argued that they suffer racial profiling and disproportionate abuse and discrimination at the hands of the British police and the criminal justice system (CJS) in general.¹ These circumstances are echoed throughout Europe.

The police shall carry out their tasks in a fair manner, in particular, guided by the principles of impartiality and non-discrimination.

—European Code of Police Ethics

Daley: What was it like in the Met [The London Metropolitan Police Services] with all that stuff?

PC [Police Constable] Andy Hall: Shit, because of that Stephen Lawrence thing [refers to the case of the racist murder of a young black man that would change antidiscrimination law in the UK] …

Daley: What do you think about the boys that done it?

PC Pulling: They fucking need fucking diplomatic immunity mate—they have, they’ve done for this country what others fucking should do … Macpherson report! I remember it as if it was yesterday. A fucking kick in the bollocks for any white man that was.

—The Secret Policeman, a BBC documentary, broadcast date October 21, 2003.