Let’s not shut down dissenters over two-tier policing

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley

As violent disorder swept our towns and cities, Sir Mark Rowley took to the airwaves in an effort to set novel terms for the public debate on policing.

Rowley told Sky News, that those debating whether there is bias in policing, “legitimise the violence that the officers I am sending on mutual aid today will face on the streets. They are putting [the officers] at risk by suggesting that any of those officers are going out with any intent other than to operate without ‘fear or favour’ in protecting communities.”

This should now be termed the “Rowley Doctrine”.

Had this approach been adopted, there would have been no exploration of the police’s role in the circumstances which led to the Brixton riots of 1981. It was the Scarman Report, published in the aftermath, which highlighted the issues of racial disadvantage – including the disproportionate use by the police of stop and search against black people.

Following the 2011 police shooting in Tottenham of Mark Duggan – a black man – which led to riots across the country, there was no attempt to claim that the scope of any debate into the role played by alleged police bias should be limited because it subsequently made policing London more difficult.

Recently, a senior police officer claimed that the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, which led to scenes of disorder where multiple police officers were injured, provided the ‘opportunity to examine how policing and the criminal justice system operates’. Meanwhile – after what was a mostly peaceful vigil on Clapham Common following the murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 ended with a physical confrontation – the Met repeatedly defended their actions at the vigil in multiple court hearings despite having been found to have acted unlawfully.

The Met has not always deemed this debate to be beyond the pale. Earlier this year their willingness to engage was demonstrated by one of the force’s most senior officers, Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist, attending and speaking at a keynote event at Policy Exchange with Priti Patel, Hazel Blears, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Carlile on the subject of ‘Differential Policing’– a concept similar to ‘two-tier policing’.

Sir Mark, who has been Commissioner for almost two years, claims that every police officer acts ‘without fear or favour’. The idea that every officer operates in this way, on every occasion, is at best optimistic. No Commissioner could be sure what each of the Met’s 33,000 officers are doing every time they are deployed.

However, whether there is a systemic difference in how the police treat different groups is a legitimate question to ask. Indeed, it is the central question to ask of policing the world over. Sauce for the goose, must be sauce for the gander.

That a robust response by the police to the violent disorder was necessary is not in doubt and is massively popular with the public. Similarly, that those involved in the riots are being swiftly sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment is a sign that the criminal justice system can work speedily, as it ought.

Rowley is surely right to assert that over the last fortnight, police officers on the frontline have demonstrated conspicuous bravery. Hundreds have sustained injuries while standing firm in the face of violence.

In recent years however, the decisions taken by policing’s most senior leaders’ have too often been found wanting. There are now countless examples of policing appearing to make different choices dependent on which group they are dealing with.

These points extend wider than just public order policing. The police’s and social services’ failings in Rotherham – which led to the sexual abuse of many hundreds of children between the 1980s and 2013 – is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of a public service failure resulting from not acting ‘without fear or favour’. The independent inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay in 2014 revealed that there was a failure to act because professionals feared being accused of racism as most of the perpetrators were of ‘Asian’ heritage.

A core part of the problem is a lack of transparency into decision making by police forces. We are often told that the police are consulting with local ‘community’ groups and leaders. During the recent disorder it was after such consultations that West Midlands Police apparently chose a ‘low key’ policing approach while disorder took place. Who are these ‘community leaders’ that gave the police such advice? What is the nature of their discussions with the police? Who is involved in choosing them to represent ‘community’ interests?

Whether “differential” or “two-tier” policing definitively exists as a systemic issue across policing may well not yet have been proven – but we cannot meekly accept the Commissioner’s assurances that it does not exist.

In so doing, by limiting the terms of the debate, is he now attempting to impose a “two-tier” system for how we discuss policing?

Why does all this matter? Because the police continue to have huge power over our daily lives. They have the power to force entry into our homes. They have the power to arrest us. They can take us to a police station and strip search us. The Commissioner can well assert that the police operate without “fear or favour”; but it is our right to examine the correctness of that view.

Sir Mark should now focus on worrying about policing the streets of London – rather than policing the terms of debate.


David Spencer is the head of crime and justice for Policy Exchange and a former Detective Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police