Positive Discrimination

[TomandJerry]

"Met police ban recruits who live outside London

Police chiefs hope move will help double the proportion of minority ethnic officers in the force"

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/14/met-police-ban-recruits-outside-london#start-of-comments

I don't think positive discrimination should be enforced, what are your thoughts?

 

[Paul Reids Sock]

"Met police ban recruits who live outside London

Police chiefs hope move will help double the proportion of minority ethnic officers in the force"

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/14/met-police-ban-recruits-outside-london#start-of-comments

I don't think positive discrimination should be enforced, what are your thoughts?

I agree, however it can be a bit touchy so I expect this thread has the potential to go a bit mental.

Ultimately positive discrimination is still bringing race into the equation. Everyone should be assessed on their merits and given the role accordingly. I don't care if all of our police were black, brown, pink or any colour as long as they were the best people to do it.

I guess the argument may be that after so many years of discrimination the scales need to be turned in order to address the proportion. However this should mean that once proportionally represented the practice should stop. I have heard nothing to suggest this would be the case though

 

[Dan Aitch]

Positive discrimination is illegal. Positive 'action' is permissible. This will presumably be seen as positive action because it isn't selecting those who possess a particular characteristic or eliminating those who don't - it's just limiting applicants to those from a particular geographic area that contains a higher level of BAME residents.

It's technically no different to a school having a catchment area. The Met have defined their own catchment area, but have done so with the intention of balancing their ethnicity a bit more.

 

[pastafarian]

i wonder how many people will blame the Tories for this positive "action"

i feel sorry for people who live outside London,whatever their colour who dream to be met police officers......thats the crap version of this story.

 

[teaboy]

i wonder how many people will blame the Tories for this positive "action"

i feel sorry for people who live outside London,whatever their colour who dream to be met police officers......thats the crap version of this story.

Are there no other police forces they could join? Like, the one in the area they live in, maybe?

 

[Albumen]

A police force should ideally consist of the same ethnic profile as the community they serve. If they've failed to produce this through recruitment and retention maybe there's a call for positive discrimination in a recruitment drive. I presume they've looked at all other ways first.
The issue would be why the profile doesn't match. Are the same amount of applicants of a certain ethnic background getting to the interview and offer stage? And is there a pattern in the different ethnicities average tenure?
Workforce planning isn't difficult.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

May be the same situation should be applied to housing as well, i.e Only people who live in Sussex or have connections i.e parents are allowed to buy property in Sussex.
I think that's fair, it will give first time buyers the chance to buy and stop people from the outside pushing the prices up.

 

[Wally Goulds right toe]

As long as people see themselves as part of some dreary group or other - rather than as the individuals that they are in reality - then this nonsense will continue to rear it's ugly head.

 

[teaboy]

May be the same situation should be applied to housing as well, i.e Only people who live in Sussex or have connections i.e parents are allowed to buy property in Sussex.
I think that's fair, it will give first time buyers the chance to buy and stop people from the outside pushing the prices up.

It isn't 'people moving in' to areas that caused the housing crisis, but the lack of house building and the continued conversion of residential areas into offices, especially in city centres. That, and buy-to-let.

 

[Kaiser_Soze]

A police force should ideally consist of the same ethnic profile as the community they serve. If they've failed to produce this through recruitment and retention maybe there's a call for positive discrimination in a recruitment drive. I presume they've looked at all other ways first.
The issue would be why the profile doesn't match. Are the same amount of applicants of a certain ethnic background getting to the interview and offer stage? And is there a pattern in the different ethnicities average tenure?
Workforce planning isn't difficult.

All of this positive action does nothing to deal with the issue of the perception of the police in BAME culture. I know a black woman who joined the police and was disowned by family and friends who labelled her a coconut (same principal as Ashley Cole and the choc ice comment.)

Similarly, in the Asian community historically kids are encouraged /expected to go to university and pursue careers such as medicine or accountancy. While that remains the same, things won't change.

I would be very interested to see the number of Met applications over the past 10 years, broken down into racial groups. It would show what influence the policy has had and what the initial ratio of white to BAME applications was.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

May be the same situation should be applied to housing as well, i.e Only people who live in Sussex or have connections i.e parents are allowed to buy property in Sussex.
I think that's fair, it will give first time buyers the chance to buy and stop people from the outside pushing the prices up.

So, you get reelocated to Sussex through your job and you can't buy a house. Not really practical is it ?

While it would be ideal to have a level playing field for everything, I think there is a place for positive discrimiation for a limited time. Have a drive to get the representative of the population in the role you're talking abiut, then once you get to a certain point it should be be self-supporting, and pd not necessary.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

THe Met have negatively discriminated for quite some time now....so this is a welcome advancement.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

It isn't 'people moving in' to areas that caused the housing crisis, but the lack of house building and the continued conversion of residential areas into offices, especially in city centres. That, and buy-to-let.

It's both. Thousands of people have moved down here from London and the surrounding areas. They don't want to be near the place anymore. For them to put 250,000 straight down on a property here and still have change in their pocket is nothing. That's why properties are selling so quickly. As regards rented properties, people are also being moved down this way because the rents are so much cheaper than they are in London. This part has been created due to a lack of affordable housing but it has also been fueled by the number of people who have arrived in this country over the last 10-15 years. It's why the place has got so much busier. There is a big shift of people going on.

In Newhaven they now want to be 800 new homes, well I would like to ask what are they going to about the roads, the services, and most importantly the jobs.
Newhaven is hardly the same place it was 20 years ago as regards manufacturing.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I don't have an issue with positive discrimination if they are trying to get their police force to be more representative of the community it serves.

But having lived in a country where positive discrimination has been in force as an attempt to improve the lives of the previously disadvantaged, my observation is that it does not really work. The black middle class in SA has increased significantly which is a good thing, but poverty levels are still enormous.

 

[teaboy]

It's both. Thousands of people have moved down here from London and the surrounding areas. They don't want to be near the place anymore. For them to put 250,000 straight down on a property here and still have change in their pocket is nothing. That's why properties are selling so quickly. As regards rented properties, people are also being moved down this way because the rents are so much cheaper than they are in London. This part has been created due to a lack of affordable housing but it has also been fueled by the number of people who have arrived in this country over the last 10-15 years. It's why the place has got so much busier. There is a big shift of people going on.

In Newhaven they now want to be 800 new homes, well I would like to ask what are they going to about the roads, the services, and most importantly the jobs.
Newhaven is hardly the same place it was 20 years ago as regards manufacturing.

It's not the case of "not wanting to be near the place" - it's more 'can't afford to buy a home for long-term stability'. What does £250k get you in London - a 1-bed flat in zone 3/4 and no possibility of starting a family under reasonable living conditions, maybe a 2-bed shared-ownership place. In other bits of the country the same money gets you a 3-4 bed house with garden.

Regarding rents the main problem is buy-to-let. People that bought more houses than they need can then charge those with nowhere else to live pretty much what they want. The smaller the housing stock available for sale, the higher the price, and the more people needing to rent. The more demand for renting (by need, not choice) the higher the cost of rent, the more lucrative buy-to-let is and the worse the problem gets.

 

[spring hall convert]

Isn't it a better idea to have a police force that more accurately reflects the communities it is servicing (gender, sexuality, race) as far as possible?

I don't think it is beyond any doubt that the Met still has issues with unconsious rascism in the force. Check the stop and search stats for clarification.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Sussex Police also require applicants to reside within the county: where's the article on that?

Slow news day at the Guardian I guess.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

Isn't it a better idea to have a police force that more accurately reflects the communities it is servicing (gender, sexuality, race) as far as possible?

I don't think it is beyond any doubt that the Met still has issues with unconsious rascism in the force. Check the stop and search stats for clarification.

Possibly but where does it end?. This is the problem with all these types of things.

 

[TomandJerry]

Sussex Police also require applicants to reside within the county: where's the article on that?

Have they banned applicants outside of Sussex from applying on positive discrimination grounds?

 

[beorhthelm]

im curious how they think banning recruits from outside London will encourage ethnic recruits from inside London. thats the problem with positive discrimination, it usually fails to recognise or understand underlying reasons.