Racial Minorities

Merseyside Police Authority has a responsibility to eliminate discrimination and promote good relations between the different groups in our communities and ourselves.

Effective policing is dependent upon productive partnerships between the Police
Service and all members of society. To achieve this we must treat everybody
fairly, according to their needs and operate in a culture of transparency and
openness.

As a statutory public body, the Police Authority has a number of statutory functions, responsibilities and obligations. These are designed to eliminate discrimination, ensure equality of service provision, and secure a police service that recognises and responds to equality and diversity. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act places a legal duty on a wide range of public authorities, including the police, to promote race equality. This is referred to as the general duty.

The general duty to promote race equality is to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination
• Promote equality of opportunity
• Promote good race relations between persons of different racial groups
  
  

For more details go to the Authority's Race Equality Scheme.

What have we done?

All of our members and officers have undertaken diversity training and understand that the only way to gain a true picture of how Merseyside is policed is to speak to all sections of the Merseyside community.

Working in partnership

Merseyside Police Authority is committed to ensuring all of its community activities are inclusive. We do this by working with partner organisations such as The Anthony Walker Foundation (AWF), established to eliminate racial discrimination within the community and create cultural harmony and awareness in young people by providing activities and access to resources to overcome such barriers. Merseyside Police Authority is working with the AWF to achieve these aims.

Stop and Search

All police forces in England and Wales have to comply with Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, which says that a record must be made by police officers of all stops and searches, including non-statutory or so-called 'voluntary' stops, and that a copy must be given to the person stopped. The police have the power to detain someone for a stop or stop and search but they must explain why they have stopped someone and provide them with a record.

We hope this level of accountability will deliver:

• greater openness and police accountability;
• increased community confidence in the process - if people are stopped, they must be treated fairly;
• understanding on what people can do if they are not satisfied with the conduct of the stop.

For more information go the Association of Police Authorities website.