Police Street Powers and Criminal Justice by Geoff Pearson Mike Rowe

Author:Geoff Pearson, Mike Rowe [Geoff Pearson, Mike Rowe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509925377
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2020-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

V.The Evolution of Stop and Search?

We therefore identified substantial evidence of long-running and entrenched patterns of policing where street powers are used disproportionately against young working class men. We have also noted the continued distinction, with very real consequences, between decent people and the criminal type. However, while these themes endured, our research into police stop and search powers also identified significant change across the six years of the fieldwork. This was not necessarily a change in attitude, but a change in the way in which powers were applied. It was a change identified by both the observers, and by the participants. When we first entered the field in October 2013, we noted the high number of stop and accounts, stop checks, and stop searches. On the last of these, ‘Once you have been stop and accounted, you don’t need to do much to elevate that to a stop search – moving your hands suddenly, acting nervous, smelling of weed … would all get you searched …’142 In contrast, our later observations (sometimes with the same officers or teams) saw significantly fewer stops and, when those stops took place, they were much less likely to lead to a search.

Phil points out a man with a bag on [the] street. He is going to stop and account but, after a chat with Andy, who says, ‘no, he’s alright’, doesn’t stop him. I ask if three years ago they would have stopped him. Phil: ‘Yes, that’s the case … We’re stopping less people’.143

Observations of three shifts in a deprived and high-crime area in the first half of 2018 saw not one stop and account or stop check.144 In particular, officers expressed concerns that stops might lead to complaints, and that they could not rely upon the force to support them. Turning a blind eye was becoming a safer option in the eyes of some officers.145

Stop searches were also reducing dramatically. One of our participants explained that he had carried out only one stop search in 12 months, prompting his colleague to say he had conducted two. Both stop searches had been successful, which was ‘good, but if I had done 20 stop searches and found three items, meaning I had caught another bad guy’ he believes he ‘would have got into trouble’.146 It was a similar pattern across forces and roles: ‘I think our main role, in terms of stop search and disrupting people, has declined in the last 18 months, two years’, explained one Territorial Support officer.147 ‘A few years ago I’d have searched him’, explained Kenny as he lets a man with a history of bike theft cycle off following a stop check.148 The dramatic reduction in stop searches was also identifiable from force-wide and nationwide figures, where the number of reported PACE, section 1 searches tumbled from 1,229,324 in England and Wales in 2010/11 to 303,228 in 2016/17.149

What was driving this change? Participants identified four reasons why they and their colleagues were using stop search less. First, officers noted a pressure to reduce the number of searches, particularly of ethnic minorities.

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