Sexism and misogyny within the ranks of Police Scotland is “massively under-reported”, with those who do come forward made to feel they have “a target on their back” and a culture of victim-blaming favouring perpetrators, according to those in the force.
The extensive survey of how officers and staff feel about their colleagues has been published less than a week after the force’s chief constable, Sir Iain Livingstone, publicly acknowledged Police Scotland was institutionally racist and discriminatory.
It heard from individuals across the ranks who warned that executive officers “don’t know how deep [under-reporting of sexism] is”, particularly in parts of the force that maintain a strong “boys’ club” culture. “The real team meetings take place on the golf course,” said one respondent.
“The overall consensus is that support within the organisation is limited and negative consequences are common for those who make these complaints,” says the report, presented to the Scottish Police Authority board on Wednesday morning.
“Often colleagues disguise or label sexist behaviour as ‘banter’ and if someone challenges this or calls it out, they are labelled as not being able to take a joke and isolated from the team.”
It also highlighted a lack of support for flexible or part-time working, as well as maternity and paternity leave.
Officers reported that the promotion of women was labelled as “tokenistic” and senior female officers faced insubordination from junior male colleagues. Male officers said they felt unable to challenge sexist behaviour for fear of being side-lined themselves.
The report, compiled by a working group on sex equality and tackling misogyny as part of the force’s wider Policing Together strategy, was based on 528 responses to an anonymous online survey, with more than 150 officers signing up to take part in focus groups and one-to-one interviews.
It found that officers believed sexism and misogyny had generally improved over the years, and particularly since the early 2000s, but there were still areas that need improvement.
Presenting the report, assistant chief constable Emma Bond said that the force had to learn from how previous complaints had been treated and ensure a “transparent and balanced approach” in future.
She added that senior officers needed to consider the underlying causes of sexist bullying: “If you’ve got a single female within a team or shift, does that potentially increase the likelihood of that individual being isolated or part of inappropriate banter than if there are two females?
“If we are working towards gender balance, are we doing it in a considered way that doesn’t exacerbate issues?”
Last year the Guardian reported on growing concerns that the force had a systemic problem with misogynistic bullying.
Challenged on how confident she was that colleagues’ voices would be listened to now, Bond insisted that “the organisation is listening”. She said that the views in the report had been pro-actively sought as part of ongoing work on equality and diversity within Police Scotland, rather than being a reaction to the chief constable’s statement last week.
This week the first report of an independent review group detailed first-hand accounts from officers and staff of racism, sexism and homophobia, as well as people being “punished” or “sidelined” for raising concerns.
