Feminism: chat
"More than 750 Met Police employees have faced sexual misconduct allegations since 2010 – with just 83 sacked"
ScreamingMeMe · 30/09/2021 22:45
Is anyone really surprised?
"The sexual misconduct allegations – 88% of which were made against officers – include accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and using a position of power for sexual gain"
inews-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/inews.co.uk/news/uk/met-police-officers-sexual-misconduct-allegations-sacked-1225102/amp?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral
VikingVolva · 01/10/2021 10:53
This is not good.
Based on the article: It works out at about 70 complaints a year (771 since 2010). The article mentions that 446 cases were dropped because the initial allegations were not substantiated by investigation - which I suppose comes back to the old issue of 'he said/she said' but does say there were 163 arrests of serving officers, 46 left the force before investigation concluded (so wouldn't be in the 163, regardless of outcome hand 71 complaints withdrawn (no further detail)
Of the 163, 78 were charged, and if those that have already been to court, 38 were found guilty, 23 not guilty, two recorded as 'no conviction' and two had no result recorded.
They also give figures for cases treated as conduct matters, rather than criminal offences.
43,000 staff in the Met Police (the numbers include both police offices and civilian staff - but the largest group by far against whom allegations were made are police constables.
It's not good enough.
It's a small percentage, but police are meant to be behind reproach
ItsRainingProstateOwners · 01/10/2021 11:29
And how many are reported in the first place? I will try and find the article I read this in, but the former Met Superintendent was quoted as saying basically you had to pick your fights with the sexism and misogyny because the men would close ranks and you’d run the risk of them not coming out to support you when you needed them when you were out in a difficult situation.
QuentinBunbury · 01/10/2021 13:10
Yeah i think there's potentially an issue that the police are treating complaints as crimes rather than disciplinary. They should do both and sack officers for gross misconduct even if it wouldn't meet the bar for criminal conviction - as most employers would
ScreamingMeMe · 01/10/2021 15:37
@ItsRainingProstateOwners
Wow that's grim
NumberTheory · 01/10/2021 16:55
I’m surprised at how low the number of complaints is and think they probably have a huge problem with people thinking it’s pointless.
70 a year for approx 43,000 employees, 2/3rds of whom are male?
That’s one complaint for every 400 men per year. I don’t think that sounds realistic in any job. And given the descriptions of a culture of misogyny, it’s laughably low.
NumberTheory · 02/10/2021 03:17
[quote CBUK2K2]@NumberTheory maybe your expectations of men are unreasonably low?[/quote]
Depends on what you mean by “expectation”.
I don’t think it is realistic that only 1 in 400 men in the Met have sexually harassed or assaulted someone in a year. I think they have a huge problem with under reporting - just as they do with rape and sexual assault in general.
This by itself is a problem - how can they hold their officers to account if so few people will come forward when there is a problem?
NumberTheory · 02/10/2021 04:24
[quote CBUK2K2]@NumberTheory what are you basing that very serious accusation on?[/quote]
The huge incidence of sexual harassment.
Much as I think it likely most sexual offenders are serial offenders, I think it very unlikely that the 13% of employed women who report, in anonymous surveys, being sexually harassed at work each year would be so high if only 1 in 400 men were harassers.
NumberTheory · 02/10/2021 17:02
[quote CBUK2K2]@NumberTheory So where was the 13% figure taken from?[/quote]
In the UK, when surveyed, about 1 in 8 women report being sexually harassed at work each year. Lots of surveys give a range of different results but that seems to be the conservative middle ground.
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