Policy Exchange's latest analysis, led by its head of crime and justice David Spencer, points to the failures surrounding the Southport atrocity, the Nottingham stabbings and the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak as evidence of what it calls systemic distortion.

The report estimates that forces across England and Wales have spent at least £631 million on DEI measures and the Police Race Action Plan since 2020.

That figure includes roughly £431 million on the manpower costs of training, £177 million on roles with a DEI element, and £23 million on external consultants.

Spencer is clear: "Police forces have sought to entrench the radical ideology of 'anti-racism' into British policing. In doing so some police chiefs have set policing against its own foundational principle - to act 'without fear or favour'."

He continues: "It is a modern-day tragedy that many of our Chief Constables simply cannot be trusted to resolve this alone. It's time to restore the principle of 'equality before the law' in policing. Nothing less than the fundamental legitimacy of British policing is at stake."

The examples cited are not abstract. In Nottingham, mental health teams assessing Valdo Calocane are said to have considered the "over-representation" of young black men in detention before releasing him into the community; he later killed three people.

In Southport, a social worker accused Axel Rudakubana's head teacher of racial stereotyping when concerns about his behaviour were raised - before he murdered three girls at a dance class.

And in Southampton, Vickrum Digwa stabbed Henry Nowak and then falsely claimed he himself was the victim of a racist attack. According to the account, officers handcuffed the dying teenager instead of treating him.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp urged that police "should cancel all this DEI nonsense and spend the time and money catching criminals instead."

He called the expenditure "a shocking waste of taxpayers' money and completely the wrong priority when the public rightly want to see more police on the streets tackling the knife crime, burglary and shoplifting we see every day."

This lands amid a string of cases that critics say expose the same institutional capture.