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While senior police officers express their surprise and disgust at the brutal racism exposed among trainees by the BBC TV investigation, The Secret Policeman, to large swathes of the population, of course, the response is: what's new?

We have seen 30 years of initiatives since the first study of racism and the police. Now, the Chief Constables' Council has agreed yet another action plan to "weed out those who should not be in our service".

The police force is tribal, still sexist and, although it has changed hugely in the recent years, 10 minutes in any police canteen will tell you that the predominant attitude is that it's us against them. In that respect it is different from the ethos of those who work in the field of social services.


Still, the Victoria Climbi' case exposed implications of racism in social care too. Are there racist social workers? Inevitably.

In the North Wales and Greater Manchester police forces, the trainees were obsessed with "Pakis". Racism, however, is a complex business. African-Caribbeans dismissing Nigerians and vice versa; whites expressing derogatory views about everyone else and some British-born blacks expressing distaste for whites and Asians.

Weeding out those with racist views may be possible at the initial stages of recruitment, but what if such opinions are acquired over years of employment? The British National Party claims several serving police officers among its members.

Suppose a social worker with 10 years' experience gradually lets slip virulent views (and you only have to ask young, black people who have come through the care system whether such figures exist), in an era of staff vacancies and overload, how often is he or she sacked, challenged or a blind eye turned?


The actor, Ricky Tomlinson, describes in his autobiography how he moved from membership of the National Front in 1968 to anti-racist socialism today (a journey which, fortunately for him, has also earned him £850,000 from his publisher). His transformation was voluntary. Changing the minds of those whose whole identity is dependent upon holding fast to racist views, is a much tougher task.

Perhaps what 30 years of race awareness courses and diversity training have taught us is that when this is offered by an establishment that itself is ambivalent and confused on issues of race - epitomised in the phrase "we treat them just like us" - the result is failure.