In May this year the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing published a draft of the Police Race Action Plan. This document sets out steps towards achieving their vision for ‘a police service that is anti-racist and trusted by Black people’.
Included as part of the plan is a key action to ‘Improve the police response and effectiveness in supporting missing persons from Black communities.’ This is a positive step forward as the over-representation of Black people in missing statistics and the discrimination shared by many who have reported a loved one missing have not previously been acknowledged as an area for police improvement.
Despite this, we do not believe the proposed actions to achieve improvement are clear or strong enough. We have therefore submitted a response asking them to further develop this element of the plan.
The response to Black and other minoritised ethnic communities is a key priority for our organisation over coming years. The police are key in this response and we are pleased to see an increased focus on the issue. We hope to work alongside people of colour who have been affected by missing, as well as other organisations supporting them, to ensure that improvements are meaningful and widespread.
We have launched a regular email so that you can be aware of new missing person appeals and share them far and wide! We are also calling on all Heroes to be the eyes and ears for Missing People on the ground. Your sighting of a missing person could make a difference in a crucial time.