Surfing the Crime Net: Issues and Challenges in Police-Community Relations
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Surfing the Crime Net: Issues and Challenges in Police-Community Relations Jon Garland1 Introduction The contentious issue of the police’s use of stop-and-search powers hit the headlines again in the summer of 2004 when new Home Office figures for the year 2002/03 indicated a dramatic rise of 22 per cent in the number of people subjected to stop-and-search procedures under the full range of legislation (Home Office, 2004). There was a 17 per cent rise in white people stopped and searched, a 36 per cent increase in black people and a 36 per cent increase in Asians. The figures also revealed that police stopped black people approximately six times, and Asians 4.5 times, more often than whites. The statistics also revealed that the number of Asians subjected to stop-and-search under the Terrorism Act 2000 had increased dramatically from 2001/02 to 2002/03, showing a rise of 300 per cent (for white people the equivalent percentage increase was 118 and for black communities 230). These increases led to accusations that the policing were using their stop-and-search powers disproportionately against minority ethnic communities, and especially against Asian populations, whom they were accused of stereotyping as potential terrorists (Ford, 2004). Concerns surrounding bias in the police’s use of stop-and-search powers have been repeatedly voiced over the last two decades or more. It is, however, a complex issue, with some commentators warning against taking stop-and-search figures at face value, as the apparent disproportionality in the national statistics can in fact be accounted for if the statistics are broken down and analysed at a local level. It is argued that if the local figures are compared against the actual population visible ‘on the streets’, then the apparent national disproportionality more or less disappears in some areas.2 Whatever the case may be, it is undoubtedly true that a lack of transparency in the conducting of stop-and-search has fuelled the suspicions in some sections of minority ethnic groups that the powers are being enacted unfairly. In an attempt to counter these worries, Macpherson, in his report into the inquiry of the events surrounding the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, recommended: That the Home Secretary, in consultation with Police Services, should ensure that a record is made by police officers of all ‘stops’ and ‘stops and searches’ made under any legislative provision (not just the Police and Criminal Evidence Act). Non-statutory or so-called ‘voluntary’ stops must also be recorded. The record to include the reason: for the stop, the outcome, and the self-defined ethnic identity of the person stopped. A copy of the record shall be given to the person stopped. (1999:334)
Whilst the police service has adopted this recommendation since the report’s publication in 1999,3 the current leader of the Opposition, Michael Howard, has since stated that if elected the Conservative Party would reverse this decision. Blaming ‘sociological mumbo-jumbo and political
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