The Police Will Protect You

 3/22/22 Yahoo News:

The Metropolitan Police's approach to tackling corruption is "not fit for purpose", a damning report has found as it detailed a host of shocking revelations that currently blight the force.

Findings published on Thursday found the force has not learned lessons from the unsolved, high-profile 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.

Since then, despite multiple recommendations aimed at tackling core issues within its ranks, the Met has been found to have a “degree of indifference” and has “fundamentally flawed” ways of rooting out corrupt staff.

The Home Secretary called in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) after an independent inquiry into how the force handled Mr Morgan’s case found it was institutionally corrupt, saying it had concealed or denied failings to protect its reputation....

Criminal connections

In terms of the recruiting new staff, the report said examiners were "far from assured that the vetting process is sufficiently effective in assuring the trustworthiness and reliability of new recruits".

In a force which is supposed to make a community feel safe, there have been a number of new people brought in who already had criminal records.

In the two years before the inspection was carried out, over 100 people who had committed criminal offences were allowed to join the Metropolitan Police.

In 2018, the MPS recruited 12 police officers with prior recordable offences.

In 2019 this number increased to 56. In 2020, it saw a slight dip, with 53 recruits joining with known offences.

Although the report admits "most" of the offences were "not especially serious", it notes they did include theft, handling stolen goods and wounding.

There were also concerns raised about officer's connections to crime, as some recruits were known to be "closely connected to known criminals."