Avon and Somerset Police ask communities to shape future of policing

Chief Constable Sarah Crew of Avon and Somerset Police has called her own force "institutionally racist"

Black and ethnic minority communities are being asked to help shape future policing after a force labelled itself "institutionally racist".

Avon and Somerset Police Chief Constable Sarah Crew applied the term to her own force in June.

It followed a review into the Metropolitan Police, which she said was a "catalyst to examine ourselves".

The force has now launched a new scheme called Race Matters to engage better with more communities.

Avon and Somerset Police employs more than 6,000 people

Ms Crew said: "I'm not talking about what's in the hearts and minds of most people who work for Avon and Somerset Police.

"This is about recognising the structural and institutional barriers that exist which put people at a disadvantage in the way they interact with policing because of their race."

Speaking at a police performance and accountability board on 30 August, Ms Crew said: "We know that those communities have significantly less trust in us and it means engagement is doubly important."

Ms Crew said 47 people have joined the force's Race Matters engagement network

She said that making the statement on institutional racism had given the police an opportunity.

Ms Crew added: "We used that opportunity to send some targeted invitations out to a much wider group of people and community members and stakeholders than we normally do to create a new network of people who can help us understand and help us become an anti-racist organisation in the work that we call Race Matters.

"That was a request to say: will you be actively involved in policing, in shaping the future in the proposals we want to develop into action, or do you simply want to be informed?"

So far, 47 people have joined the Race Matters engagement network.

Ms Crew added that the network had helped share community appeals and was "a channel of communication we didn't have before".