Police Race Action Plan

The Police Race Action Plan is the biggest coordinated effort ever across all police forces in England and Wales to improve trust and confidence in policing among Black communities. Policing is determined to become an anti-racist organisation that actively roots out bias and discrimination from our ranks. Whilst the plan has been launched with a focus on Black communities, there will be benefits to all ethnic groups and communities.

The plan launched in 2022 and the work here in Humberside has got off to a strong start.

There are four workstreams that we are working towards delivering in Humberside.

Workstream 1

Humberside Police want to be an employer of choice for all members of our communities and be made up of officers and staff that look like the communities we serve. This workstream focusses on our internal culture and how we can attract, recruit and then retain members of our Black communities.

Workstream 2

The national data for police use of powers, in particular stop and search, shows that Black people are disproportionately stopped. In Humberside, we are improving processes for stop and search, monitoring the data and will be publishing our stop and search figures to the public.

Workstream 3

Community engagement is key to any police force across all areas of our business. We need the community voice to help us represent and serve our local communities. We are doing this by holding and attending community events, Independent Advisory Groups and encouraging members of the public to help form our thinking and to provide us with feedback and examples of lived experience.

Workstream 4

Workstream four is data led and looks at understanding the impact of crime that disproportionately affects our Black communities. With that data, we can better understand how we can improve, educate and protect our Black communities from criminality.

Delivering the long term, institutional changes we want in things like culture, outcomes and behaviour will take time. But there has never been so much support, focus and determination to ensure policing is representative of and can be trusted by Black communities across the country.

Our communities are key to helping us ensure we get this right and so on Tuesday 10 September, we held a Police Race Action Plan Conference. The aim was twofold.

1. To talk about what we are doing in force to deliver the Police Race Action Plan
2. To provide our communities with an opportunity to share their lived experience and help form the priorities for delivering the Police Race Action Plan here in Humberside

The interactive session asked four questions and examples of some of the many suggestions have been included below:

How can Humberside Police listen better?

• Take the time to listen and be open and honest
• Keep expanding the focus and have monthly meetings
• Have cultural understanding when dealing with incidents
• Treat everyone as individuals

What should we be doing more of?

• Listening
• Community Engagement
• Ask for feedback
• Be transparent
• Reflect our communities in the force

What is working well?

• My Community Alert
• You’re listening – we recognise this isn’t easy and you realise it is necessary
• Partnership working
• Being proactive

What should be our priorities for the next 12 months?

• Overcome language barriers
• Increase social media content
• Create active allyship
• Build trust

You can access the full feedback document here.

This feedback has been collated and is now being digested and will be further discussed at our Police Race Action Plan IAG taking place on Monday 4 November at Melton2 at 6pm.

If you would like to join in the discussions about the Police Race Action Plan and help us to deliver you can register for our IAG by emailing [email protected]