‘We just don't have enough women of colour in policing’, says Lincolnshire Police chief ahead of retirement
A retiring police chief has said that the force still has “a huge way to go” when it comes to inclusivity.
Kerrin Wilson, assistant chief constable of Lincolnshire Police, has discussed some of her career highlights, including a role training Iraqi Police in Baghdad, as well as the challenges of being a woman of colour in policing, ahead of her retirement.
Kerrin joined Lincolnshire Police in 2018 from Cleveland & Durham and was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in 2021 for her work around quality, diversity and inclusion, which she is a keen advocate of as a female officer of mixed race background.
She named this as a highlight of her career, adding that she was "really proud of the work that we've done to make the organisation a fairer place, especially for minorities to thrive in and allow them to reach their potential".
As well as this, Kerrin stressed the importance of being inclusive to all communities.
She said: “If people don't talk to us because they think we're going to be homophobic, or sexist or racist, then they're not going to come to us when they need it.
“That's really important to me that we were open enough to make sure that everybody's welcomed."
Kerrin’s family has no policing background, and she originally worked in the fashion and retail industry for seven years before joining the Northumbria Police in 1992.
She said that she had wanted to do something more “socially responsible” and found the idea of policing “really exciting”.
Kerrin explained that one of the biggest challenges early on in her career was the lack of role models that looked like her.
"I think the first eight years of my service, I was the only female officer of colour in the force I was in. So it was incredibly isolating," she said.
"And although I had some fantastic colleagues, if you were getting hurled racist or sexist abuse at, then they would stand up and defend you. But sometimes you needed somebody else to talk to who had experienced the same thing as you. I didn't have any role models to look up to who looked like me.
"So I think the service has changed over the years so that we're not in that position anymore."
Kerrin's advice to people who might want to join the police force, particularly those from minority groups, was that policing is "a tough job" and it is "part of your life" 24/7.
"You become policing. And you can't just switch off when you go home. So it's not a Monday to Friday, eight to five job. It becomes who you are and how you live," she said.
"The standards that you have outside of the workplace have to be the standards that you have inside the workplace. And certainly from a woman of colour in policing, is that if you want to join now, join.
"You will still be on the cusp of something new, because we just don't have enough women of colour in policing at all anywhere in the country. You will still find challenges."
Kerrin served for a year on secondment to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as the director for training the Iraqi Police based in Baghdad, which she says taught her "a huge amount of humility".
She said: "I was helping to reset what training should be like, instead of just marching and shooting, and introducing things like human rights and the institute of democracy and domestic abuse and things that were not traditionally part of their training regime."
This experience made Kerrin realise she was "tougher" than she thought she was, but also gave her humility as she was in Iraq for a year and could come back home to the UK.
"People who are living there and working there. It's their lives, and it's their country, and they're there forever," said Kerrin.
"They have a huge amount of strength and desire to make their country better.
"There was one instance of a police woman who I was talking to. She would come to work in the green zone every day and her five children were split up into three different homes of her extended family.
"She would go back to a different home every night.
"She did this because, if she was followed back by one of the insurgents for being in the police, then they would only kill one or two of her children.
"So my question was, why be in the police? Why don't you go on work in the market or do something different?
"She said there's a chance that one or two of her children might get killed because of my job. But if she didn't do this, then none of her children will survive for a better life.
"It's experiences like that, which really gives you the humility to come out and make sure that when I'm in policing that I'm there for the people that I'm trying to serve."
When asked what she is looking forward to most in retirement, Kerrin said that she was "a bit of a travel junkie" and was looking forward to visiting friends in other countries.
"I'll still be keeping my hand in little bit with police leadership training, and sitting on some boards of charities just to make sure that I'm not completely forgotten about," she added.
Kerrin also explained what she would miss from the job during retirement, with the camaraderie of her colleagues top of the list.
She said that "the sense of making a difference both to our communities, and how we're developing policing" were also things that she would miss.
"We've still a huge way to go to make sure that we're as inclusive as we should be for policing, and that we're delivering the very best service," Kerrin continued.
"And it's a constant journey, and it's a constant change. And we are getting there. So I will miss the hustle and bustle every day, being at the cutting edge of decisions and dynamic decisions about what things that are going to change people's lives.
"But I will be looking forward to spending more time, my friends and my family when I get home."