Sharing your experiences of the police to challenge bias and improve practice

Police toolkit for identifying and challenging bias in their response to missing Black people

Black people are at greater risk of going missing: while 4% of the population are Black, 14% of all missing reports are for Black people. Research has shown that Black people also face more difficulties when they are missing: staying missing for longer, being less likely to be found by the police, and being less likely to be identified as at risk. People with lived experience have shared experiences of discrimination, and the complex impacts of systemic racism.

We are developing a toolkit about improving the police response to missing Black people and their families.

As part of the toolkit we want to include Black people’s lived experiences of how the police response to missing incidents has impacted you and your community. This could be about how the police interacted with you, how bias can show through, how Black missing people are treated, or your personal story.

Please share your reflections. This can be in any format – testimonial, your story, poetry or spoken word, art, a video clip, an audio clip, or any other form.

The toolkit is being developed by a group including people with lived experience of going missing or reporting a loved one as missing, as well as representatives from ListenUp and Missing People. While we will endeavour to include all submissions, the group may exclude some submissions if they do not align with the aims or ethos of the project.

By making a submission you are giving us permission to include it in the toolkit, on our website, on social media, in training, and in a range of other contexts. The toolkit will be shared with all police forces across the UK, and be available to the public.

It is completely up to you whether you would like to remain anonymous, or would want your name included. If you submit an audio or video clip, and would like us to change your voice or distort your face to protect your identity, please let us know.