Equal Opportunities and the Police in England and Wales: Past, Present and Future Possibilities

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the police service in England and Wales has been subject to a number of pressures to change from an authoritarian, hierarchical and closed organization to one that is more managerially accountable and receptive to the policing needs of all the country’s citizens (Weatheritt, 1994). One source of pressure, as Murji and McLaughlin discuss in their contribution to this volume, has been the new managerialism of the Conservative government of the 1980s and 1990s, which introduced business practices and market disciplines into the public sector, including the innovation of a battery of performance indicators within the police service (Savage and Charman, 1996). A second source of pressure has been the development of the quality of service initiative, driven by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) (Waters, 1996; see also Loveday, Chapter 6 in this volume). A third influence has been the introduction of equal opportunities policies within the police service (Walklate, 1996a, 1996b). It is this latter source of pressure which is the focus of this chapter, and in particular the progress achieved so far and possible future developments, although clearly it is difficult to assess the specific contribution made by equal opportunities without mention of other sources of change, especially as in some respects they may be antagonistic.