To feel a bit bad for the met police on bbc panorama undercover

[Bloodyscarymary]

Just watching the BBC Panorama doco “Undercover in the Police” and I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy.

Yes, the behaviour shown is awful and they should lose their jobs, but having their faces, names and secretly recorded conversations, sometimes even off duty over a pint broadcast feels like a bit of a violation of privacy.

I honestly would have thought secret filming like that couldn’t even be made public, but clearly it’s legal or the BBC wouldn’t air it.

I’m not excusing what was said at all. The culture clearly needs to change. But is it fair to single out these particular officers when the problem is obviously widespread?

I also felt some of the more junior officers had just absorbed the culture around them, and at times the journalist might have been nudging them into certain topics. A few of the comments even felt like dark humour or going along with pub chat. Still unacceptable, but if you secretly recorded doctors or other professions that probably use a lot of dark humour to get through it, I’m sure you’d hear things that would seem really callous to an outsider.

Absolutely they should be fired/reprimanded, but do they deserve complete public exposure like this? AIBU to feel uncomfortable about it?

YABU they deserve everything that’s coming their way

YANBU it’s too much personal exposure when the real problem is the Met culture not these individual cops

Who the f…k still watches the Biased Broadcasting Corp? Given their history for impartiality and inaccuracy, I wouldn’t give credence to anything they broadcast. Doh

It seemed very ironic they were complaining about immigrant rape culture (which IS worse for some who come from patriarchal countries like Afghanistan) but then dismiss that poor woman kicked in the stomach while pregnant.

Like the men who go to TR rallies about 'protecting our women' & then commit DV. Or the recent 'vigilante' who got had up for DV.

It's not really about protecting women to men like that, it's about controlling them.

This was caught on film though, sustained undercover filming. And we have evidence of police misconduct, lots of it - the 2 murdered sisters who were joked about, for one.

Of course the police also fo these things-the Met is responsible for one of the most horrendous violations of privacy and confidentiality in human history by planting undercover police in innocent activist communities and having sex and even children with unwitting women and then abandoning these women and children without a backwards glance. So can we have a little less of this convenient aphasia and a little less pearl clutching over the technique used by the press to get these men on record?

It is a tough horrible job and sometimes it attracts tough horrible people. There should be robust processes aimed at weeding them out.

Most of the time attracts normal people who care about their community, but need to decompress after a night shift of being spat at, punched, racially abused. Not to mention the huge spikes in aderenalines, and seeing horrific scenes that include child assault. Humour in such horrific circumstances is a trauma response.

The BBC has not done society any favours by conducting an investigation in this way. I can be sure that if we had an undercover reporter at any type of complaints unit, or hospital they would be able to find some footage of normal people managing their emotions in the same way after dealing with stressed members of the general public.

Surely all investigative journalism breaches confidentiality though, by nature?

I get what you’re saying OP.

The behaviour on show was completely horrific and the individuals deserve to be punished.

What feels uncomfortable is that the men are part of a culture (often products of it) who will take the hit on behalf of everyone who contributes to that culture. They will lose their careers and reputations, and much much more, while others, equally culpable, walk free.

It’s the culture that stinks - so I also feel that some of the men’s identities should have been hidden. The young guy in the pub has probably been exposed to this kind of talk since he joined the force and it’s been normalised - then like you say was being egged on. I imagine he’s weak and foolish and wanted to fit in - as well as being a horrific racist.

Is there anyone amongst us who hasn’t had a conversation or exhibited behaviour that makes them squirm with discomfort to think about? Luckily for us it never got broadcast on national TV.

To reiterate, I am in no way excusing these racist, misogynistic thugs and it’s absolutely horrifying to think they are responsible for policing our streets. But I agree OP, something feels off.

Are you saying white police officers are getting racially abused for thro ethnicity? Not questioning, just trying to clarify.

Also the comment about the poor pregnant woman who was kicked : was THAT just letting off steam?

Tbf there does seem to be a problem of midwives often being callous, and care home staff.

Yes I am. Everyone has the potential to get racially abused, in stressful cicumstances when peoples executive functioning is compromised. You just pick the thing that is different about them.

Yes joking about horrific things is a way of dealing with it. I have worked in healthcare I have seen horrific things, so I know first hand.

Remember we are only seeing a certain amount of footage- probably the worst, taken over a long period of time, we haven't seen the hundreds of hours of footage that was taken.

What about the sexual comments at work that made the female officers upset? Or the horrible comment about the pregnant woman kicked in the stomach?

Of course white officers get abused for being white…. Oh wait, you can’t be racist against white people.

why do you think the government doesn’t produce stats of crimes by nationality… because it woukd show the reality of what’s happening. Denmark do this and it’s very telling as to whose committing crimes there.

the amount of abuse police receive must be s joke…. It’s a bloody hard job these days as people.

not every police officer is a Wayne cousins, just like not every doctor is a Harold shipman.

Hang on, so who is racially abusing white police officers? Ethnic minority criminals presumably as it wouldn't make sense for a white criminal/suspect to abuse a white police officer for being white.

I know, I was just trying to ascertain who was committing it.

Yes ofc there is a sex assault problem with many Muslim countries. We all know that.

I haven’t seen the full documentary yet, just some choice clips.

The comments shown were awful but sadly not surprising. Time and again the police in this country are shown to be racist and misogynistic.

The problem is that when there’s such a harmful culture, it doesn’t leave any room for banter or edgy humour. The police put themselves in dangerous situations every day to protect the public and many witness terrible sights. I think it would be natural to share a gallows style humour that others outside the force might find a bit distasteful.

But when you have such a damaged culture everything gets seen through that lens. And when there are things being said which are so utterly unacceptable, nothing will be tolerated when brought out for scrutiny. I’m talking about “jokes” that might be a bit blokey or laddish without being genuinely misogynistic - when the culture is so toxic, nothing even remotely off-colour is ok because it all contributes.

I didn’t find any of the comments to be acceptable. None of what I heard could be written off as a harmless joke. That comment about taking fingerprints by force and snapping tendons was chilling.

The Met isn’t learning. The problem is that no matter how many diversity courses you send someone on, if they are racist and sexist, they’re not going to change. The only way is a full clear out but that’s not possible when we rely on the police for law and order, now more than ever.

It just shows you that the extreme distrust many women now have if approached by the police is probably well justified. Same goes for non-white folk.

There are undoubtedly good people in the police force. But too many are attracted to the job because of the power it gives them which is a terrible basis for a position of trust.

So most of us have made comments like that about autistic people? Or pregnant women who've been kicked in the stomach?

I sort of see your point. It provides an opportunity to distract from the 'rotten barrel' argument (mentioned in the programme notes) by making a show of dealing with some rotten apples. I think anonymising those filmed could have actually had more of an impact (they could still be identified and dealt with later, but as part of a wider initiative). The focus should be on the force, not the individuals.

I am confused are you asking me or telling me?

A persons skin colour/race is a low hanging fruit in a confrontation. In a conflict you have to be able to identify a reason as to why they "aren't like you" to justify why you should fight them or resist them.

When you are in fight/flight/freeze you lose the ability to think things through becuasuse you are focused on ending the situation you are in. Therefore you can't be expected to think rationally.

So in short, white people can be racially abused. It's a lower probability in the UK because 90% of the population is white, so they will use which ever football team you support instead or your accent etc..

Even if we did a full clear out, is it inevitable that such people will often be attracted to it?

I see, thank you. Tbf 81% of the UK is white, not 90%, but I get your meaning.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest&ved=2ahUKEwiNltW5tISQAxUVWUEAHS9nMo4Qr-IDegQIExAD&usg=AOvVaw2GnAYsJ9N_XEFnstAvKMHu

I am guessing the original post?

I think this is only relevant if their comments translated to demonstrable harm when doing their jobs. I think all sorts of awful things about different groups of people, if I was in a group of like minded people I might even say or join in, but I don't act on them. Its called being a professional.

The issue in this case is that now the public know who they are, and it diminishes their ability to do their job- as they have to have a trustworthy reputation. How fair that is I am still in two minds.

I would also be starting an investigation how the journalist got through the vetting etc.

Yes, look at what the US is like.

I completely agree with this. It would be too difficult to manage, especially as we know that a certain percentage of the police will always have a hero/god complex.

I think you’re right, there will always be that risk.

I don’t know how they recruit or what psychometric testing they do. I think they’ve been so desperate for new recruits, probably not that much!

The trouble is currently, new recruits join and immediately are plunged into the culture which undoubtedly influences them.

If the damaged culture wasn’t already there, you might be able to prevent new recruits from being corrupted by it.

But I think for sure part of the problem is the type of people it attracts. Even more so at the moment. Plenty of people wouldn’t consider a career in the police right now because it’s got such a poor reputation. It’s a vicious circle.