IOPC campaign to raise awareness of police complaints system among women and girls
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched a campaign to remind women and girls about their right to complain if they have been made to feel unsafe, uncomfortable or dismissed by the police.
The IOPC said it was aware that confidence in the police among women and girls was lower than it should be.
“Women and girls who have faced abuse are left with the trauma of their experience,” it said. “They can also feel extremely let down if they do not have a good experience with police after reporting the issue.”
The campaign – ‘You have a voice’ – aims to raise awareness of the complaints system and help build trust and confidence among women or girl victims and survivors, and those who support them.
“We want women and girls to know that if they are unhappy with their treatment by the police, they have the right to speak up, be heard and can make a complaint if they wish to,” the IOPC said.
It added: “We know from our research that confidence in the police, and the police complaints system, is lower than it should be, especially among women and girls.
“Data from our public perceptions tracker indicates that only 31 per cent of women feel that the police deal fairly with complaints made against the police. The same research tells us that the high-profile stories about the police in recent years have resulted in 73 per cent of women feeling more negative about policing.
The IOPC said its campaign comes at a time when society’s response to violence against women and girls (VAWG) is “under scrutiny”.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing set out the scale of the challenge in a recent report which showed that 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls are recorded each day and declared VAWG a national emergency. They also recommend implementing a whole-system approach that brings together criminal justice partners, government bodies and industry to focus on preventative work.
In addition, the IOPC said recent statutory inquiries have highlighted issues with police culture, arrests, custody, strip searches, vetting, treatment of victims and survivors, and the failure to properly investigate allegations and how complaints are handled.
“Through our own work, stakeholders tell us that it is important to know about the complaints process at the right time, ideally before something happens,” the IOPC said. “It is also necessary to know who can complain, about what and when.
“Some of the barriers to women and girls accessing the police complaints system include a lack of awareness and trust in the system, and the perceptions we are not independent of policing.”
Working with stakeholder groups, including third sector organisations, experts in the field of VAWG, academics, independent advisers and policing leads, the IOPC has developed materials, to help provide the right information to women and girls in the most appropriate way.
“We are encouraging stakeholders, partners and local authorities, to actively share and promote the information with their service users and networks and display the materials in suitable spaces,” said the IOPC. “We have also produced a digital guide for stakeholders to refer to when supporting or advising someone on the police complaints system.
“We have also created an advocacy pack to help people support someone to make a complaint.”