A police chief has torn up a diversity guide that told officers to avoid saying ‘blacklisted’ and ‘black sheep’ in case it offended anyone.
Hertfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Jonathan Ash-Edwards called the document ‘virtue signalling’ and said it would ‘damage public trust and confidence in policing’.
The nine-page diversity, equality and inclusion reference guide, published last year, was created by Bedfordshire Police and Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire constabularies.
It called on police officers to use gender neutral language such as ‘pregnant person’ rather than pregnant women while it advised against using ‘Christian-centric’ language such as ‘faith’.
Mr Ash-Edwards, who was elected into his role last May, said he and Hertfordshire Chief Constable Andy Prophet shared concerns over the guide and have now ‘commissioned a review of all such documents’.
He demanded a return to ‘common sense… when it comes to language’ and told The Telegraph in a statement: ‘Asking police officers and staff to use terms such as ‘pregnant people’ is unlikely to be seen as ‘inclusive’ by many women, for example.’
Mr Ash-Edwards said from his experience of meeting residents from diverse communities ‘many Asian residents are worried about family gold burglaries, our Jewish communities fear anti-Semitic hate crimes’.
‘What I have yet to hear is a call for more virtue signalling,’ he said.
The phrase ‘blacklist’ has been warned against in a police nine-page diversity, equality and inclusion reference guide
Hertfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Jonathan Ash-Edwards called the document ‘virtue signalling’ and said it would ‘damage public trust and confidence in policing’
He adds to growing voices of bewilderment against the guide.
The ‘reference resource for staff and officers’ handout said gender is a ‘social construct relating to behaviours and attributes’.
‘There is a wider range of gender identities than just male and female,’ it added.
The guide covers concepts such as racial microagressions and white fragility – which is defined as ‘a state in which some white people are unable to cope with or process the information they receive about racism’.
Officers are also reminded to refrain from generalisations such as older people people grumpy and boring and women in their 50s being menopausal.
Last week, Festus Akinbusoye, the UK’s first black Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and former PCC for Bedfordshire Constabulary, called the document ‘utterly mad’.
Bedfordshire Police and Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire constabularies have created a diversity, equality and inclusion reference guide for their officers and staff (file image)
Festus Akinbusoye, the UK’s first black Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) and former PCC for Bedfordshire Constabulary, called the guidance ‘utterly mad’
He questioned why the term ‘whitewashing’ was not singled out for criticism but the terms ‘blacklisted’, ‘black sheep’ and ‘black mark’ were.
‘Was this to have been brought to my attention while serving as Police and Crime Commissioner, I would have asked questions as to the necessity and limited inclusivity of this inclusion document,’ Mr Akinbusoye added.
James Esses, a psychotherapist and campaigner who posted screenshots of the guidance on X, said: ‘I think it is utter madness that in all the years we have seen the harms that this woke ideology has done, that this being sent to police officers.’
The three forces said in a joint statement the guide aimed to help officers identify difference in communities and to treat the public with respect.
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