Political unity growing to reform stop and search

Last week, Shadow Home Secretary Rt. Hon. Yvette Cooper MP said that the practice of stop and search needs an urgent change and wrote to the Home Secretary, Rt. Hon. Theresa May MP offering cross party support.

Cooper believes the disproportionate impact on BME communities is “shameful” and calls for urgent reform. Cooper added,

“This issue is too important to be kicked into the long grass. It goes to the heart of people’s trust in the police and the misuse of stop-and-search has the potential to undermine effective community policing.”

In the UK, statistics clearly show that you are more likely to be stopped and search if you are black and Asian than your white counterparts.  Not only do these hundreds and thousands of searches each year lead to nothing but resentment and create barriers between the police and the community, the effectiveness in reducing crime must also be questioned.  In 2013, across the country there were over one million stop and searches and only 100,000 justified an arrest. In London alone in 2013, there were 260,000 stop and searches which did not find any justification for arrest.

Cooper said,

“ it’s bad not only for the police because it’s an expensive waste of time, but also for the community safety because it undermines the relationships we all rely on.”

May during her speech to the Police Superintendents' Association of England and Wales conference last September also expressed reservations in the use of stop and search saying,  

“Stop and Search is an invaluable tool for reducing street crime, particularly knife crime. I want you to use it, because if it is used properly and fairly, it works very effectively. But the caveat is vital: it works if it is used properly and fairly. Stop and Search has the potential to cause immense resentment and hostility to the police, with all the implications that has for generating distrust and ending co-operation from the public, if it is not used properly and fairly. Stop and Search can either be an effective policy for stopping street crime – or it can be a means of generating distrust of the police. “

Cooper is calling for the banning the practice of giving officers ‘targets’ for stop and search in some areas. It results in an abuse of the legislation and means that individuals were stopped and searched simply to meet targets rather than stopped founded on any criminal suspicions. She also wants a review of the use of Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which allows a police officer to stop and search a person even without any reasonable suspicion of a crime should be limited and restricted.

Rachel Taylor, a Police Action Solicitor for StopWatch, a London based organisation which focuses on the issue of the stop and believes that Section 60 is “one of the most draconian stop and search powers."

She said,

“There are a lot of people convinced that racial discrimination wins when officers are not required to meet any reasonable suspicion, and since analysing different statistics, in the period going from 2009/2010 black people where stopped 23 times more than white people it’s absolutely normal that someone my start thinking that black is the problem.”

In December, May sought approval from the Cabinet's Home Affairs Committee to a "package of measures" which included an amendment of Section 60 so that the test for the power's use is 'necessary' and 'expedient’.

May said, she intended to,

"raise the level of authorisation to a senior officer who must reasonably believe that violence 'will' take place (as opposed to 'may')."

However, despite the positive moves by May, authorisation to proceed is being delayed and it was reported on Newsnight yesterday that sources had revealed that there is a delay from Downing Street because,

"there's just a lack of will, a fear of looking soft on crime."

It is clear from politicians and campaigners alike that the current practice of stop and search has significantly negatively impacted BME communities and the misuse of it has come at a high cost, both to society and financially. Therefore, we welcome the political unity and will shown by Cooper and May in the need to challenge and reform this practice and we will watch keenly to ensure that this call to action, is  followed through with practical actions that will bring an end to this shameful and racist practice.

Francine Fernandes and Cinzia Ezeanyim