How Effective Is Police Stop and Search Essay

This assessment go forth focus on scratch 1 of The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Stop and Search situations). I will look at the employ of insure and try onwards the Macpherson musical composition and afterwards the Macpherson comprehend and compargon how it has channelised. The use of give out and bet federal agencys in allow the guard to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour, and to prevent a lot terrible crimes occurring generally in public places like a Football match. A law officer roll in the hay ask what you are doing, why youre in an area and/or where youre going.They also postulate the power to period and hunting you if they occupy primingable grounds to suspect youre carrying il legitimate drugs, a weapon, stolen property or something which could be utilize to localise a crime, such as a dangerous weapon. You slew and be stop and reckoned with bring out reasonable grounds if it has been approved by a senior police officer. This can happen if it is suspected that serious wildness could take place, you are carrying a weapon or throw use one or you are in a specific perspective or area. hitherto, you dont have to answer any questions the police officer asks you.The Police officer will none down septet details these include Ethnicity, Objective of search, Grounds for search, Identity of the officer carrying out the stop and search, Date, Time and Place. except organism searched does non mean you have been arrested, unless any of these factors apply. Sir William McPherson carried out an doubt in 1999 following an investigation of the eat up of Stephen Lawrence. The 18-year-old A-Level student was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack as he waited for a bus in Eltham, south London, in April 1993.Nobody, at the measure was convicted of his murder. However in 2006 the Metropolitan Polices Acting alternate Commissioner, ordered a cold case review that led to the convictions of Gary dobson fly and David Norris in 2011 they were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury after a trial based on forensic evidence. Scientists found a tiny bloodstain on Dobsons jacket that could only have come from Mr Lawrence. They also found a single hair belong to the teenager on Norriss jeans. Both men have had previous(prenominal) run-ins with the law Dobson was jailed for five years in 2010 for drugs trafficking.He is among a small egress of men to have been attempt doubly for the same crime (double jeopardy) after the Court of Appeal quashed his 1996 acquittal for the murder. Norris was convicted in 2002 of a separate allegation of racially threatening behaviour. Allegations of incompetence and racism against Metropolitan police officers that were in charge of the case sparked the original inquiry as did two internal police inquiries which acquitted the Metropolitan itself. In recounting to the stop and search at that place is no actual change in the stop and search powers for the police.However r ecords of all stop and search operation have to be published, and a shopy of the record can also be given to the person involved if requested hence there can be no discriminative reason to stop someone as the police have to provide written reason to the suspect and the police crowd. The 1981 Brixton riots and the subsequent Scarman report were key factors in the transportation formation of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). It provides the core framework of police powers and safeguards around stop and search, arrest, detention, investigation, identification and interviewing detainees.The aim of PACE has always been to pull in a balance between the powers of the police in England and Wales and the rights of members of the public. Literature look backward The immediate effect of Macpherson saw a decrease in the use of stop and search. In London, stop and searches fell from 180,000 in 1999/00 to 169,000 the following year. Nationally, the act of stop and searche s fell by 21% and then a still 16% from 1998 to 2000. By December 2000, representatives of rank and file officers were saying that Macpherson had disg zipd morale. Officers, they said, were unprepared to use stop and search out of fear of beingness labelled racist.So William Hague called for there to be a onward motion in the use of Stop and Search. This was seeming(a) in 2001 when Mr Hague linked a rise in violent street crime in some areas to a drop in stop and searches of black hoi polloi because police officers feared being called racist. However, this can be argued as many black and Asian large number including Stephen Lawrences father, Neville, who filed a complaint after being stopped live on year said they were still being unfairly targeted. And in January figures from the stand Office showed that the fall in searches was greatest for white suspects with black population still ive times much probably to be stopped in London than white people. The Equality Act 2 010 get tos it prohibited for police officers to break against, harass or victimise any person in relation to age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, marriage, civil assortnership, maternal quality and maternity when using their powers on the ground of protected characteristics ( theatre Office 2011). This shows they have tried to control the situation of racism in the baron and tried to put a stop to it.However racism within the force goes back decades as before 1984 police were allowed to stop and search whoever they cute therefore it became easier and more of a habit to target people who condition criminal persona. This laid back approach to stop and search caused fusss because police became discriminative to the public which can be shown in the Home office statistics (Police and Criminal Evidence Act, The 1984). Research shows this is still happening immediately even though the Equality Act 2010 was put forward this is evident in (justice 2010). Black people are 8 per cent more likely than whites to face stop and search.In relation to the McPherson report the Committee said that since the introduction of the report the police have make tremendous strides in the service they provide to ethnical minority communities and in countering racism amongst its own workforce. This is evident in the fact that sixty-seven of Macphersons 70 recommendations have been implemented fully or in part in the ten years since his report was published. However the statistics show that there is still racism in the force therefore were McPhersons recommendations needed or could he have focused more on the problem in hand?Many people see that that racist persona of the forces comes from the base that police officers are unvoiced, tough, and will non tolerate unacceptable behaviour. This is called cop culture which is hard to define as it has moved from discussing about one culture to discussing unlike cultures such as su bculture, street culture, police culture, canteen culture (It can be defined as where the police share the same sense of identity which evolves around work, hard play and hard drinking), headquarters culture and the cardigan squad (the soft and fluffy culture).Cop culture can be seen as many different things depending on how you view the police themselves. In Britain the Scarman report in 1981 riots in Brixton was influential and raised the importance of stop and search on boyish black men who felt they had been unfairly targeted repayable to their colour. Rowe argues that while not all conclusions were the militaristic style of policing, with poor public engagement t established recommendations relating to policing for example on homework, the role of community policing, lay visitors at police stations, discipline and stop and search. Rowe also mentions that the recommendations mentioned in the Scarman report were reiterated in the McPherson report almost 20 years later suggest s that the recommendations were not effectively implemented in the Scarman report (Rowe 2007155).However McPherson was more outspoken using the term institutional racism that Scarman shied away from, making the problem more visible to the public. This is evident when the metropolitan police mishandled the Stephen Lawrence case due to a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a hardship of leadership by senior officers (McPherson 1999). In terms of police culture, institutional racism was said to incorporate racist stereotyping of black people as potential criminals or troublemakers (McPherson 1999).Taking this into account a racist officer can be seen as an incompetent officer as it is finding a lack of understanding of cultural diversity illustrated in the existence of cultural crisis in the metropolitan police therefore they should be retrained or dismissed. Many people of been very critical of the McPherson report one master(prenominal) criticism is that although McPherson made 70 much needed recommendations for the force he did little to bring justice for the family of Stephen Lawrence which was the reason he originally conducted the inquiry.However 11 years after the inquiry was completed justice was in fact served for the Lawrence family simply not due to McPhersons recommendations. This shows the failings of which the Macpherson Report draws oversight too, is in relation to the police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence which is important, scarcely the account as to how and why the problems occurred is somewhat limited which needed to be tell as well. This means that he noted the problem of racism but didnt recommend to put the case back on retrial.The problems identify by McPherson are not only unique to this case or other racial murders but rather they are related to the social, legal and organisational environments in which this sort of police work should be undertaken at all times. The stop and searc h has been proven to be a success for the police, the power to stop and search people who they suspect of being involved in crime is an important tactic. It provides a means to confirm or placate suspicions about individuals without exercising their power of arrest.Where the stop and search is employed befittingly and proportionately, it could increase community confidence in the police force and make a positive contribution to reducing the fear of crime. Stop and search has been very successful in relation to knife crime. For example October 2009, more than 380,000 stops and searches have been conducted 14,700 people have been arrested and more than 7,500 knives have been recovered. However the stop and search has seen negative attitudes in relation to law-abiding people who feel they have been unjustifiably targeted.These people are less likely to swear the police and co-operate with them when they have a problem, therefore conducting effective policing, becomes much more diffi cult. There are still concerns in relation to stop and search and through this the equality and human right commissioners are go along to monitor how the police are using their stop and search powers. They urgency to see a reduction in the national figures for race disproportionality in the use of stop and search powers. A reduction in the number of excess stops and searches carried out on black and Asian people. similarly forces with game excesses, in particular the Metropolitan Police, taking action to crack that the powers are being used in a non-discriminatory and lawful manner. They are also monitoring and concentrating on forces that currently have particularly high rates of disproportionality, in particular some southern rural forces, taking action to reduce their race disproportionality ratios. And finally the forces with race disproportionality collaborating and sharing sizable practice with their neighbours.The lack of ethnic contact outside law enforcement and in th e law enforcement needs a clear transformation. The criminal justice system can in no way be prejudice, discriminative, racist or sexist. They are there to keep the public safe and the public has to confidence them otherwise the system would fail, the public have to be extremely open-minded. superstar way to do this is to focus on race awareness training for all police officers in and joining the force. However this strategy has been used before and after the Scarman report and unfortunately made little concern over the decades since.Macpherson is aware of this but fails to adopt a more ascendent policy agenda directed at the structure and organisation of policing and the kin between police and ethnic minorities in the law-enforcement situation itself therefore the race problem is still occurring. To conclude many will argue that not much is different before the McPherson report during and after. The statistics show that being of ethnic origin walking the streets you are more l ikely to be stopped then if you are white, this stereotype needs to be changed and then the force will be less inclined to stop people of this interpretation with little or lack of reason.However there has been a decline in the amount of black and Asian people stopped but also a decline in the amount of officers that use stop and search on regular basis in fear that they will be labelled a racist. The police need to find a balance between being labelled and doing their job to maximise the trust from the public and minimise fear of crime. Therefore the public and force can come together to make the community the safest place possible.