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4 Oct, 12 tweets, 4 min read
🧵THREAD

Following the conviction of Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard, the Met acknowledges that it needs to look at its ‘own culture’. But the culture of any institution is determined by its leadership.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/s…
When it comes to leadership on sexism, 9 out of 12 police officers across England and Wales who abused their positions or failed to properly investigate sex crimes between 2017-2020 remained in post.
bylinetimes.com/2021/09/21/thr…
We recall that after the tragic murders of black sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in 2020, two officers from the Met shared photos of the murder scene on WhatsApp and with the public.
standard.co.uk/news/crime/met…
When it comes to racism, much could be said about the leadership’s refusal to acknowledge organisational issues such as stop and search, lethal weaponry and excessive force. This thread concentrates on evidence of racist attitudes in the force.
In late 2020, several officers from Hampshire’s Serious and Organised Crime Unit in Basingstoke were sacked after racist, homophobic and sexist comments they made in a private WhatsApp group, referred to as a ‘lad’s pad’, were exposed.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
A whistleblower said that on the WhatsApp group there was ‘enough profanity, casual sexism and racism to last a lifetime’. Two other police officers resigned before they could be sacked.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
As we now know that Couzens was part of a police officers’ WhatsApp group, currently under investigation over alleged misogynistic racist & homophobic messages, isn’t it right for us to ask, just how prolific are such groups amongst rank-and-file officers?
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/o…
And have the courts given a clear steer as to professional conduct when such cases come to light?
This year, a magistrate cleared a police officer who shared a meme on a police WhatsApp group of George Floyd knelt on by a porn star on the grounds that although it was ‘disgusting and grossly offensive’, it was not proved to not be intended as a joke.
mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/p…
In spring 2021, after the Met's Benjamin Hannam was convicted of membership of terrorist neo-nazi organisation National Action, a judge suggested that Hannam’s neo-nazi sympathies ‘played absolutely no part’ in his professional conduct as a police officer.
theguardian.com/world/2021/apr…
Couzens was nicknamed ‘the rapist’ by former colleagues and there are claims that two complaints of indecent exposure had been received by the Met and, apparently, not properly investigated.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/s…
All of the above suggests that this is not about canteen culture but a culture of impunity which will become even more entrenched if the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, which massively extends police powers, is passed.
irr.org.uk/article/polici…

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More from @IRR_News

Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
24 Sep
🧵What is happening to equalities in the UK?

After a former employee of the @EHRC accused the body of ‘colluding in the denial of institutional racism’, this THREAD recalls a series of warnings that the government appears set on disappearing the matter of structural racism. Image
Following the #SewellReport, IRR Director Liz Fekete warned that some of its reccomendations were designed to create a new set of norms about how race and racism are conceptualised and which could make research into structural racism 'virtually impossible' irr.org.uk/article/sewell…
In @BylineTimes, Fekete & @LiamShrivastava highlighted how the government's Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill would limit academic freedom and protect bigotry and hate speech in the name of ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘viewpoint diversity’. bylinetimes.com/2021/08/19/the…
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Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
27 Nov 20
THREAD

What's the true significance of the EHRC’s recent report on the hostile environment?

IRR Vice-Chair, Frances Webber responds
The report is what's termed a Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) Assessment of the Home Office’s compliance with the Equality Act 2010 – a less rigorous procedure than an inquiry or an investigation into ‘unlawful acts’ defined by the Act, such as discrimination or harassment.
There might have been legal reasons for the EHRC choosing this procedure to look at the legislation which required or enabled others to discriminate (the essence of the hostile environment), as legislation is excluded from the scope of ‘unlawful acts’.
Read 8 tweets
Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
25 Nov 20
A huge thank you to everyone who has taken part in today's twitter storm highlighting the issues raised in this report, giving those that died a context and an identity, and calling for #SafePassageNow

irr.org.uk/article/deadly…
Special thanks to our report partners @Migrantpptlond1 who helped fund and initiate the report through contact with @legisti based in France, who wrote an earlier French-language version. Please follow both of them to keep in touch with their vital work.

#SafePassageNow
Thanks to @legisti for coordinating the documentation of the many deaths due to border controls and for giving us the results of this report. Special thanks to Maël Galisson.

#SafePassageNow
Read 5 tweets
Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
25 Nov 20
As part of today's #SafePassageNow twitter storm starting now, we will be highlighting some of the many cases like Niknam's.

Read his story and the many others 🔽
bit.ly/Deadly-Crossin… Image
The importance of counting and accounting for deaths at the border was recognised by Leanne Weber and Sharon Pickering, who in their 2011 book 'Globalisation and
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about the lives of those who died seeking safety, security, family or a better life, to re-humanise the people behind the statistics; and second, showing that the deaths are not ‘natural’ or ‘tragic accidents’ but man-made... 2/3 Image
Read 5 tweets
Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
18 Sep 20
THREAD

The IRR is concerned that the government has given a contract to develop a ‘border flow tool’ to a company with disturbing links to the US far Right and which does not respect privacy or data protection safeguards.

theguardian.com/politics/2020/…
The new border contract gives US data analytics firm Palantir Technology access to HMRC and Home Office data in addition to data on goods and transport.
Founded by right-wing billionaire and Trump supporter Peter Thiel, the ‘patriotic’ company has been sued in the US for discriminating against Asian applicants and hires relatively few immigrants, citing a ‘reduced threat of subversion from workers or a foreign power’
Read 10 tweets
Institute of Race Relations Profile picture
30 Apr 20
As criticisms grow of Trevor Phillips involvement in the government’s inquiry into the disproportionate impact of #Covid19 on BAME communities, @PHE_uk has said that a consultancy run by Phillips and Prof Richard Webber have the right skills and experience to aid the inquiry 1/14
This thread is aimed at testing this claim through the lens of Webber and Phillips' previous work in creating ‘coding’ systems marketed to police forces. 2/14
The research consultancy Webber Phillips is the UK distributor of ‘Origins’, a postcode-based classification system which allows the police to infer the cultural background of people involved in incidents by examining their names. 3/14
Read 14 tweets

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