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Diversity training for cops 'a waste of time' says expert
Last updated at 22:52pm on 30.09.07
Police forces should return to common sense and scrap diversity training says Dr John Coxhead
Diversity training for police is often a waste of time, an expert has warned.
Forces should stop putting so much effort into training courses and return to "common sense," according to Dr John Coxhead, who worked for ten years as a liaison officer with gipsies and travellers.
Spending on diversity courses became a priority for forces after the Macpherson report into the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence accused forces of "institutional racism".
Scotland Yard has said it spends £5million a year on community and race relations courses.
But Dr Coxhead, a sergeant in the Derbyshire force, said: "Preoccupation with training often takes the place of work application.
"A lot of emphasis has been placed on diversity training, but is it really what matters?
"Training is not the sole answer to racism. Diversity training can be a self-feeding monster."
Tackling discrimination depends on "what people do, not what they learn in the classroom once a year. It is about what they do on a day-to-day basis."
Dr Coxhead has written a doctoral thesis on attitudes to travellers.
Reader views (5)
Surely they should receiving training to catch criminals, learn how to walk the streets, drive cars at high speed safely?
What is this diversity training?
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London
We did not have "diversity training" before the Nu Labor arrived! And the place was safer.
- Jeff, London
This man is obviously in need of some training to eliminate his hatred of diversity training ...
- Paul, London
We have known this a long time: it is called common sense. It is just that the government needed another Nu Labor project to spend tax money on. When you have it spend it Crash Gordon says...
- Georgie, London
Dr Coxhead's studies have been a waste of time and resources.
- Rob Ravu, Hull, East Yorkshire
