Advocacy

Our advocacy is grounded in the principle that institutional reform should be judged by what changes in practice and outcomes.

We advocate for:

• independent and community-led scrutiny of policing;

• meaningful implementation of race equality commitments;

• transparent and disaggregated policing data;

• stronger safeguards for Black children and families;

• accountability for institutional racism, discrimination and misconduct;

• community participation that is properly resourced rather than dependent on unpaid labour;

• stronger links between lived experience, evidence and public decision-making;

• policing reform that strengthens democratic accountability rather than simply reorganising institutions.

We use a combination of public statements, joint letters, policy briefings, meetings, roundtables, media work, parliamentary engagement and coalition-building.

We do not claim consensus where it does not exist. Our role is to help build clear community and civil society positions where agreement can be reached, and to ensure those positions are communicated directly to the institutions responsible for change.

Alongside our reports and briefings, we publish shorter commentary and joint or open letters as part of our advocacy.

The APA has worked to ensure that community accountability is part of national discussions about police reform.

Our Policing Accountability Framework has been shared with the Home Office and has contributed to discussions about how independent community oversight can form part of future accountability arrangements.

We continue to argue that reform cannot rely only on police institutions assessing their own progress. Communities need independent structures through which they can test commitments, organise evidence and require public responses.

We have played an active role in civil society scrutiny of the National Police Chiefs' Council Police Race Action Plan.

During 2025 and 2026, we convened organisations around the question of independent oversight and helped develop a shared civil society framework for community-led scrutiny. That process brought together a broad range of organisations and community voices and informed the later development of the APA's Policing Accountability Framework.

Our position remains that race equality commitments require scrutiny that is independent of the institutions responsible for delivering them.

The APA has consistently scrutinised progress following the Casey Review of the Metropolitan Police Service.

In 2025, we convened Truth and Transformation? The Metropolitan Police Service Two Years Post-Casey, bringing together community voices, experts and policing representatives to examine institutional racism, misogyny, homophobia, misconduct and the credibility of reform.

We have also supported calls for continued independent oversight of the Metropolitan Police and contributed to wider review processes examining progress against the Casey recommendations.

Our advocacy on Black child safeguarding has developed through community meetings, conferences, roundtables, policy work and responses to individual cases.

We have called for stronger safeguarding responses when children experience violent police contact or strip search, including proposals for automatic statutory safeguarding referrals and clearer critical incident processes.

This work is grounded in the principle that children should be treated first as children, and that safeguarding duties must remain central when police powers are used.

The APA has also convened national discussion on racist attacks, hate crime and community safety.

Our work has argued for stronger community safety infrastructure, including clearer critical incident responses and better mechanisms for communities to identify, communicate and respond to emerging threats.