Improving police responsiveness

In the United Kingdom, Lord Scarman's Inquiry into the Brixton Disorders in 1981 focused on bringing police officers closer to the communities they serve, on community and race relations training, the supervision and monitoring of police officers' performance, the recruitment of minority ethnic officers, lay visitors schemes, recruitment procedures which identify racial prejudice in potential police recruits, and police disciplinary and complaints procedures. Police Authorities are now required to make arrangements for obtaining the views of local people about the policing in their area and to take account of these views when the Police Authority determines the local policing objectives The main recommendations from their report were that all officers should receive training in community and race relations which should be integrated into the main training curriculum and that a specialist support centre should be set up to train force trainers.