The current legislative context for policing is indicative of a growing concern over police policy-making and police decision-making. The Police Reform Act 2002, for example, introduces new frameworks of governance for the police service and new arrangements for police policy-making. This coincides with a growing research interest into the police policy-making process and in particular the role of "pressuregroups" in campaigning for influence over the policy process. Against this backcloth, we have witnessed an increasing focus on the nature of police relations with minority ethnic communities driven by, above all, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. This thesis seeks to draw each of these developments together by examining the role of minority ethnic pressure groups in police decision-making and policy-making, one "internal", one "external" to the police organisation, respectively the Black Police Association (BPA) and the Independent Advisory Group (lAG). By means of qualitative research, primarily by interview, the thesis examines the individual and comparative destiny of the BPA's and lAG's role. Using an insider-outsider framework, it traces the respective strengths and weaknesses of each group in terms of drivers, formation, networking and impact. On this basis, the thesis concludes that the BPA may be seen as a "slow burning fuse", reflecting longer-term problems and issues in terms of equality within the police service and, as such, has exerted an incremental form of influence over policy-making. Alternatively, the lAG has enjoyed a more catalytic influence over the policing sector because of the particular configuration of events surrounding the Macpherson imperatives. The policy environment, which emerged concerning the Lawrence case, became one in which winning the confidence of minority ethnic communities in the police service was paramount and pressing. As a result, the impact of the lAG was more dramatic and high profile than was the case of the BPA. This thesis makes a contribution to the wider study of pressure groups particularly around the issue of insider-outsider groups.