The study, seen by the Guardian, was based on in-depth interviews with officers who policed ​​the streets. The officers spoke in confidence to academics from the University of Liverpool and served in forces in the north of England, including Cheshire, Cumbria, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. Nationally, figures for England and Wales show that ethnic minorities were almost twice as likely to be fined as whites. An author of the study says the findings show that institutional racism likely influenced how pandemic powers were executed in some cases. Officers had hastily drawn up powers to fine people without good excuse for not being at home, in line with government guidelines. Some officers spoke of believing that certain minority ethnic groups were more likely to defy the rules, without having any basis for this belief. Some officers also focused on minority ethnic groups who usually received police attention as potential suspects. Police chiefs wanted fines to be imposed as a last resort, with suspected people encouraged to obey the rules before any fines were issued. The approach taken by the police, the study says, “legitimated a different approach to enforcement that reflected pre-existing biases in policing, including biases in beliefs about what types of people are most likely to break the rules and deserve and require punishment to ensure their compliance with the restrictions’. The study said: “Many of our participants had developed their own ideas and generalizations about how different ethnic groups behaved in relation to Covid restrictions and, in some cases, the reasons for any differences between groups.” Some officers told researchers that minority ethnic groups were more visible to the police because they lived in “poor” or “problem” areas where the police presence tends to be greater, or because they were more likely to live in smaller, more overcrowded houses with fewer outdoors. space, the study said. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Officers spoke of how difficult it was to enforce the rules, which changed frequently, with one saying: “It was almost impossible to police it the way we were told to police it.” Liz Turner, the report’s co-author, said biases and attitudes already in place in policing were being applied to pandemic enforcement: “What we found was suggestive of the possibility that institutional racism was at work.” He added: “There has been a return to a ‘business-as-usual’ mentality, a mentality that the problem groups most likely to break the Covid rules were those groups that were already viewed with suspicion.” One officer told the study: “Without trying to sound like the racist white cop, there are far more breaches in this area. Asian men commit far more than any other ethnicity.” Another of the 32 officers who spoke in depth about the study said, “I tend to find that the Asian community in the department is more likely to be obstructive and less likely to take the advice.” Turner said: “There is no evidence that ethnic minority groups are more blatantly breaking the rules than other groups. There was unintentional discrimination built into the organization’s procedures. None of the officers said anything that they felt was out of the ordinary in terms of bias.” Officers talked about issuing fines based less on the risk of breaking the rule of spreading disease and more because they felt people were disrespecting their authority. Turner said: “Not much attention was paid to the risk of the disease. It was: “There are these people who break the rules and don’t accept our authority to make them follow the rules.” Andy George, president of the National Association of Black Police Officers, said: “Of course there was bias in the way they interacted with communities. It highlights the stereotypes and prejudices that exist about ethnic minority communities. It’s worrying.” In June 2020, the National Council of Police Chiefs (NPCC) said it would conduct an inquiry to explain the disparity – the term used to describe when one ethnic group experiences more police force than another, without necessarily meaning there is any partiality. The NPCC declined further comment.