This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2023
June 19, 2006
The main conclusions of the study, commissioned by the Directorate of Professional Standards and written by an Asian detective chief inspector, stated: "Asian officers and in particular Pakistani Muslim officers are under greater pressure from the family, the extended family ... and their community against that of their white colleagues to engage in activity that might lead to misconduct or criminality."
Secret report brands Muslim police corrupt
http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,1794445,00.htmlFury over internal Met study which says Asians need special training
Sandra Laville and Hugh Muir
Saturday June 10, 2006
The Guardian
A secret high-level Metropolitan police report has concluded that Muslim officers are more likely to become corrupt than white officers because of their cultural and family backgrounds.
The document, which has been seen by the Guardian, has caused outrage among ethnic minorities within the force, who have labelled it racist and proof that there is a gulf in understanding between the police force and the wider Muslim community. The document was written as an attempt to investigate why complaints of misconduct and corruption against Asian officers are 10 times higher than against their white colleagues.
The main conclusions of the study, commissioned by the Directorate of Professional Standards and written by an Asian detective chief inspector, stated: "Asian officers and in particular Pakistani Muslim officers are under greater pressure from the family, the extended family ... and their community against that of their white colleagues to engage in activity that might lead to misconduct or criminality."
It recommended that Asian officers needed special anti-corruption training and is now being considered by a working party of senior staff.
The report argued that British Pakistanis live in a cash culture in which "assisting your extended family is considered a duty" and in an environment in which large amounts of money are loaned between relatives and friends.
The leaking of the report comes at a time when the Met needs the cooperation and trust of the Muslim community more than ever and as the force tries to contain the fallout from last week's anti-terrorist raid in Forest Gate in which a man was shot. The first version was considered so inflammatory when it was shown to representatives from the staff associations for black, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim officers, that it had to be toned down. There are 31,000 officers in the Met - 7%, or 2,170, are black and minority ethnic; among these an estimated 300 are Muslim.
One Muslim officer with the Met said: "It is like saying black officers are more likely to be muggers. Today it is Muslim officers who are treated as the Uncle Toms. How can they say to the Muslim community 'trust us', when they don't even trust their own Muslim officers."
Ahmanrahman Jafar, vice-chairman of the legal affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said it was shortsighted of the Met to be alienating its Muslim officers at such a sensitive time.
"We've got about 1,000 wrongful anti-terrorist arrests since 9/11 and I believe that if Muslim officers were involved in looking through that intelligence and understanding the context, we would have far greater efficiency in the police force and a far greater prosecution rate," he said. To support its conclusions, the report gives examples of cases in which Pakistani Muslim officers have been accused of corruption and misconduct. According to its critics, the report gives insufficient weight to the motivation of those who made the complaints or issues of institutional racism.
Superintendent Dal Babu, chairman of the Association of Muslim Officers, said the report had racist undertones. "We are gravely concerned about its contents and the message it sends to recruits and potential recruits," he said.
George Rhoden, chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association added. "We have made it clear that we disagreed totally with the conclusions ... the whole thing needs to be researched in a much more comprehensive way."
Reports into riots in British towns
The Cantle report in full (pdf)
Oldham independent review report in full (pdf)
Burnley task force report in full (pdf)
Bradford race review report in full (pdf)
Useful links
Moving Here
Bradford Race Review
Commission for Racial Equality
Crosspoint
Institute of Race Relations
Islamic Human Rights Commission
Muslim Council of Britain
Refugee Council
The Monitoring Group
Media
Asian Eye
Black Information Link
Chronicle World
Muslim News
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MIM: The affirmative action attempts to recruit more Muslim police a decade ago has backfired abysmally -it is also worth noting that one of the two men arrested in connection with a chemical bomb plot applied to join the police only days before the raid. The fact that having an extensive police record did not deter him from applying is more evidence of the problems outlined in the above article.
http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/bmms/1996/03March96.html#Rushdie%20fatwa%20statement
A report by the CRE, Race and Equal Opportunities in the Police Force, whilst highlighting the need to combat other forms of discrimination, has not addressed the problems of Muslims in the police force, claims Q-News (01.03.96). The paper interviewed PC Akhtar Aziz, who stressed the problems Muslims face with the police culture: "When I first arrived here I was expected to buy everyone a drink because that was the ‘done thing'. I didn't because this was against my religion and they could not understand this. In a way I have been treated differently because of that: I haven't been accepted..."
A campaign by Strathclyde Police to recruit more members of ethnic minority communities to the force has been so successful that targets have been increased. Bashir Mann, a leading member of Glasgow's Muslim community and chair of Strathclyde Community Relations Council welcomed this recruitment drive. He said: "I believe members of ethnic minorities should become involved in every walk of life because that is the only way they can achieve their proper place in society...over there [eg Pakistan] those who are better off, have influence, or have a better education, can go straight into the police as subinspectors or even as deputy superintendents of police. Ethnic minority parents don't realise that here every chief constable has been at some time in his career a bobby" (The Scotsman, 01.03.96). [BMMS March 1996 Vol. IV, No. 3, p. 8]
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2023