The head of Scotland’s police force has admitted that there are “potentially” problems with institutional bias against Catholics in his organisation.
The comments by Sir Iain Livingstone, chief constable of Police Scotland, followed a wide-ranging apology by the force for its historic and ongoing “institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination”.
Asked by The Scottish Sun if these problems extended to institutional prejudice against Catholicism and Islam, Sir Iain said, “I think there potentially is.”
At present, these issues weren’t “overt”, the chief constable said.
“But in terms of overt discrimination, I’ve worked with colleagues who tell me their early experiences when they came from a minority background.”
He continued: “We as an organisation need to look at our structures, policies and practices to make sure that institutional element of discrimination is eliminated. These are social evils and we need to look them straight in the eye and make sure any discrimination, whether it is religion, race, gender, disability, whatever, is unacceptable.”
The Catholic Church in Scotland welcomed his comments, saying in a statement that his “admission that anti-Catholic bias may exist within Police Scotland is both frank and honest. The first step in dealing with a problem is to admit it exists.”
The Church is now hopeful a meeting can be arranged with senior officers.
Police Scotland, founded by an amalgamation of Scotland’s police services in 2013, has attracted criticism, as several of its predecessor organisations did, over perceived inaction towards anti-Catholic sectarianism in Scotland.
In 2021 Call It Out, the national campaign against anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice in Scotland, suggested police were failing to use their power to regulate Orange Order marches and so failing to prevent public displays of sectarianism.
As recently as December last year a police officer was awarded £44,000 after a tribunal found he had been subjected to religious harassment while working in an armed unit of Police Scotland, with his belongings decorated with messages attacking Catholicism and promoting Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.
Anti-Catholic sentiment in Scotland has decreased significantly in recent decades but has deep historic roots in the traditionally Presbyterian nation.
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of a notorious Church of Scotland report titled “The menace of the Irish race to our Scottish nationality”, advocating the deportation of Irish Catholics, a policy pursued by the Church in the interwar years.
Although the Church of Scotland officially apologised for sectarianism in 2002, and, according to leading Scottish Catholic historian Tom Devine, anti-Catholicism as a socio-economic force is “on its deathbed”, recent years have been marked by a spate of anti-Catholic vandalism and public disturbances.
The most recent statistics on religiously-aggravated offences indicate 42 per cent of reported attacks were motivated by anti-Catholic prejudice, larger than any other motivation, despite Catholics only amounting to around 15 per cent of the Scottish population.
The comments by Sir Iain Livingstone, chief constable of Police Scotland, followed a wide-ranging apology by the force for its historic and ongoing “institutional racism, sexism, misogyny and discrimination”.
Asked by The Scottish Sun if these problems extended to institutional prejudice against Catholicism and Islam, Sir Iain said, “I think there potentially is.”
At present, these issues weren’t “overt”, the chief constable said.
“But in terms of overt discrimination, I’ve worked with colleagues who tell me their early experiences when they came from a minority background.”
He continued: “We as an organisation need to look at our structures, policies and practices to make sure that institutional element of discrimination is eliminated. These are social evils and we need to look them straight in the eye and make sure any discrimination, whether it is religion, race, gender, disability, whatever, is unacceptable.”
The Catholic Church in Scotland welcomed his comments, saying in a statement that his “admission that anti-Catholic bias may exist within Police Scotland is both frank and honest. The first step in dealing with a problem is to admit it exists.”
The Church is now hopeful a meeting can be arranged with senior officers.
Police Scotland, founded by an amalgamation of Scotland’s police services in 2013, has attracted criticism, as several of its predecessor organisations did, over perceived inaction towards anti-Catholic sectarianism in Scotland.
In 2021 Call It Out, the national campaign against anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice in Scotland, suggested police were failing to use their power to regulate Orange Order marches and so failing to prevent public displays of sectarianism.
As recently as December last year a police officer was awarded £44,000 after a tribunal found he had been subjected to religious harassment while working in an armed unit of Police Scotland, with his belongings decorated with messages attacking Catholicism and promoting Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.
Anti-Catholic sentiment in Scotland has decreased significantly in recent decades but has deep historic roots in the traditionally Presbyterian nation.
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of a notorious Church of Scotland report titled “The menace of the Irish race to our Scottish nationality”, advocating the deportation of Irish Catholics, a policy pursued by the Church in the interwar years.
Although the Church of Scotland officially apologised for sectarianism in 2002, and, according to leading Scottish Catholic historian Tom Devine, anti-Catholicism as a socio-economic force is “on its deathbed”, recent years have been marked by a spate of anti-Catholic vandalism and public disturbances.
The most recent statistics on religiously-aggravated offences indicate 42 per cent of reported attacks were motivated by anti-Catholic prejudice, larger than any other motivation, despite Catholics only amounting to around 15 per cent of the Scottish population.