Gypsies and Travellers

"As the gypsy and traveller equality champion for Sussex Police I am determined that the community is treated the same as any other community that we serve, so that the service we provide is accessible, responsive and visible and treats the gypsy and traveller community with fairness, respect and dignity. I will also be working hard to improve the trust and confidence that this community has with us."

- Superintendent Rosie Ross, Equality Champion for Gypsy and Traveller Equality work in Sussex Police

Priorities

• Improving our culture of inclusion and increase awareness and understanding of diversity and equality through the delivery of professional development awareness and training. Colleagues will have confidence to share their diversity data, particularly for non-visible differences, which will inform our processes and policies. Colleagues will be supported to challenge, overcome and reduce discriminatory behaviours or practices.
• Understanding, engaging and increasing satisfaction and confidence across all communities and victims of crime. Engaging with our communities to understand their concerns, improving communication, accessibility and building trust and confidence to ensure all communities have a voice, and are more confident in reporting hate crime and incidents, and be kept informed at each stage. 
• Progress understanding and address disproportionality in use of police powers. Analyse equality data regarding the use of police powers for unauthorised encampments to understand and address areas of disproportionality.

Our work in this area

As a public service

Priority areas in service delivery for Gypsy and Traveller Equality include increasing awareness of hate crime reporting methods, and gaining insight on public experiences is central to developing our approach.

A key part of this work involves engaging with people in our communities and regular consultation with our external *Gypsy and Traveller Advisory Group (GTAG). The GTAG has been operating for a number of years and is a reference group to promote equality and take action on issues relating to gypsy travellers. The group are made up of representatives from gypsy traveller communities and a variety of representative groups.

Quarterly meetings are held which include guest speakers and a review of unauthorised encampment activity.

The purpose of this group is to assist Sussex Police in making sure its policies and procedures take into account the needs of gypsy travellers and that they are treated equally to any other community whilst simultaneously raising awareness of gypsy travellers issues throughout the Force and to remove any outdated myths and prejudices.

*If you would like to help Sussex police improve its service by becoming a member of the Gypsy and Traveller Advisory Group email us at [email protected]

Community Engagement Advisors (CEAs)

The role of the CEA has been established throughout Sussex. CEAs receive specialist inputs to raise their knowledge and understanding, and create awareness in Gypsy and Traveller issues. CEAs act as a point of contact for Gypsy and Traveller communities, building relations to increase trust, confidence and encourage reporting of crime.

As an employer

If you work at Sussex Police and would like to become involved in our work in this area, please email: [email protected]