Police Scotland is "institutionally racist" and "discriminatory", said Thursday its chief, Iain Livingstone, after a report on the functioning of the institution. This blunt admission by Scotland's top police official comes as other police services, including London, have also faced similar charges in recent years.
An independent investigation by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), which oversees the work of the police, published on Wednesday, has revealed racist, misogynistic and homophobic acts or remarks by police officers. "The right thing for me to do as police chief is to make it clear that institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination exist," Iain Livingstone said.
Racism and culture of machismo
Police Scotland is under public inquiry into the 2015 death in custody of Sheku Bayoh, a 31-year-old black man, while physically restrained by six police officers in Kirkcaldy, north of Edinburgh. In early May, several former police officers denounced a culture of machismo at work at all levels of the police. The SPA report also notes the growing concern within the police about these practices.
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We have heard of people being punished for raising issues or concerns, for example by being removed from teams," it said. In March, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a "top-to-bottom" reform of London's Metropolitan Police after similar facts came to light in a 2021 report commissioned after the murder of a young woman by police officer Wayne Couzens. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Since then, another officer David Carrick has also been sentenced to life in prison for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults, further compounding the British people's loss of trust in their police. As early as 1999, London police were accused of racism for the way they conducted their investigation into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993.