The Northern Ireland Policing Board today published its 17th Human Rights Annual Report into how the police meet human rights responsibilities.
Policing Board Chair Mukesh Sharma MBE DL said:
“The report reviews topics such as Victims, Stop and Search and Use of Force. These, and other areas, have been evaluated in each previous annual report. The Human Rights Advisor has been able to assess the progress of recommendations made against each area to help ensure the PSNI meets its human rights obligations.
During 2024-25 there have been several issues that have come to the fore and the Human Rights Advisor has completed a more in-depth analysis of these areas. These areas have included hate crime including a specific focus on PSNI’s treatment of minorities and the PSNI pilot into gathering statistics in relation to community background in stop and search.
Hate crime attacks escalated over the summer of 2024 and events more recently have focused attention on the PSNI response to this growing issue. The recently published PSNI Race and Ethnicity Action Plan is an important step forward, and the Board will continue to assess progress being made, as well as making sure that the strategies and policies the PSNI have in place to deal with hate crime are human rights compliant.
Through many Human Rights reports the Human Rights Advisor, the Courts and the Independent Reviewer of the Justice and Security Act, has made recommendations to the PSNI to gather information on community background. The PSNI launched a pilot project specifically for the area of stop and search to trial a process of gathering this data. This report provides an overview of the importance of collecting this data and analyses the progress of the pilot scheme.
This report examines twelve important areas of policing in Northern Ireland and the Human Rights Advisor makes an assessment of PSNI’s current performance in each one. From this analysis the Policing Board has identified nine recommendations for the PSNI to consider and one for the Department of Justice.”
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For further information please contact the Board’s Communications Office on 07801 738795
Notes to editors
- Legislative Requirement: Under Section 3(3)(b)(ii) of the Police (NI) Act 2000, the Northern Ireland Policing Board has a statutory duty to monitor the performance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in complying with the Human Rights Act 1998. The Reports, compiled by the Board’s Independent Human Rights Advisor John Wadham, provide an account of the performance of PSNI in compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the extent of the monitoring work undertaken by the Board during the year including work on the 5 Year Human Rights Review published in July 2024 and the Policing: Children and Young People Thematic Report published in December 2024.
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