- Conference
- 2012 Police & Justice Conference
- Date
- 13 June 2012
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that over the past decades, the police and justice services have been transformed by union and community pressure into organisations committed to tackling discrimination and promoting equality.
A litmus test of this is the understanding of and commitment to identifying and tackling hate crime. This has involved building links with communities and the employment of dedicated, specialist officers such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) liaison officers and hate crime specialists.
Conference believes that this has given police and justice services the insight and intelligence to improve LGBT employment equality and the services have fundamentally changed to become employers of choice for many LGBT workers.
Conference deplores the austerity measures imposed on police and justice services which are leading to increasing numbers of liaison officer posts being deleted and hate crime units being closed. Conference deplores not only the loss of our members jobs, but the knock -on effect on the work culture and conditions for all our members, as hate crime is not tackled. Further, these specialist officers often have a role in dealing with internal, workplace issues of bullying and harassment as well as issues in the community. Loss of these roles means loss of expertise in the workplace and may mean workplace bullying going unreported or being ineffectively dealt with.
Conference calls on the police and justice service group executive to work with the national LGBT committee to highlight and oppose cuts to LGBT liaison and hate crime staff, as part of our anti-cuts campaigning.