Police Stop and Search in a Southern English County
| Published date | 01 December 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1350/pojo.2009.82.4.470 |
| Author | Faiza Qureshi |
| Date | 01 December 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DR FAIZA QURESHI
Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Department of Social Sciences,
Loughborough University
POLICE STOP AND SEARCH IN A
SOUTHERN ENGLISH COUNTY
This article looks at recorded Stop and Search activity in a
southern English county from April 2003 to March 2006. The
discussion explores the distribution of Stops and Searches and
arrests made by police officers in the county, followed by an
analysis of the demographic characteristics. The analysis of
police recorded statistics offers the opportunity to identify
patterns and trends in the police tactic which can influence and
inform policing policy. It can identify whether the power falls
unequally against certain sections of the population and/or
whether the patterns are because of the deployment of
resources based on the crime control strategy of the southern
English police service area. These factors have implications for
the service delivery role of police officers in the southern
English county.
Keywords: community policing; stop and search; police
statistics; service delivery
Introduction
Police Stop and Search powers have a number of different
functions. For example, the police tactic can act as a method of
surveillance to prevent and detect crime, and to gather intelli-
gence (Dixon, 1995; Fitzgerald, 1999; Bland et al., 2000a,
2000b; Fitzgerald et al., 2002; Waddington, et al., 2004). How-
ever, the police tactic can be undermined through its overuse
and/or abuse (Bourn, 1986), which will weaken police–
community relations (Hansen, 1986). Police–community work
was developed in England and Wales as a direct response to the
tenuous relationship between the police and black and minority
ethnic (BME) communities (Ignatieff, 1979; Brogden, 1982;
Jefferson & Grimshaw, 1984). Section 106 of the Police and
Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act 1984 and the Crime and Dis-
order Act 1998 emphasised the importance for the police of
building and maintaining partnerships with the local
community.
The southern English police service area assessed in this
article has developed a Partnership Working Model (PWM) to
increase accountability and openness to the local community,
The Police Journal, Volume 82 (2009) 297
DOI: 10.1358/pojo.2009.82.4.470
and to improve police–race relations. However, creating an open
and accountable police service can be difficult because of the
‘arbitrary and insensitive’ nature of Stop and Search (Lambert,
1986: 7). Police organisations have to try to balance delivering a
good service that is acceptable to the needs of the local commun-
ity with attempting to maintain a coercive force over that
community to uphold social order (Bullock, 1996). Research has
shown that persons from a BME origin feel that they receive an
inadequate quality of service from the police (Salisbury &
Upson, 2004; Allen et al., 2005; Allen et al., 2006; Jansson,
2006; Jansson, 2007). BME groups do not see themselves as
clients of police services, but as individuals policed by officers
(Mooney & Young, 1999; Spencer & Hough, 2000). The police
service should make sure that a high-quality service is being
delivered by front-line police officers to all sections of the
community (Goldstein, 1990). This is important to the success of
local policing because ‘gaining their (public) trust will require
both improvements in the quality of service they receive and in
the adoption – as a core element of all policing activity – of a
community focused strategy which recognises diversity’ (Her
Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), 1998: 4). How-
ever, this strategy can be undermined through local policing
policies which emphasise performance-related targets.
The use of performance indicators can help the police service
to quantify its efficiency and effectiveness (Hallam, 2000). This
has been supported by the Police and Magistrates’ Court Act
1994. The Act gave the Home Secretary the power to set the
national policing agenda for all police organisations in the UK.
Performance indicators were used ‘to drive up police perform-
ance, to improve value for money and to reduce crime’ (Fitz-
gerald et al., 2002: 111). The use of performance indicators
nevertheless can have a negative influence on police–community
relations (Bullock, 1996; HMIC, 1998), which could lead to an
increase in Stop and Search (Cashmore, 2001). Performance
indicators could also give police officers legitimate grounds to
target specific individuals and/or areas to gain further intelli-
gence and/or to increase their chances in securing an arrest
(Maddock & Marlow, 1997; Fitzgerald, 1999; Hallam, 2000).
However, four police services (Leicestershire, Staffordshire,
Surrey and West Midlands) are going to abandon the use of
government targets (BBC News Online, 2008). This was a
response to the Flanagan Review (2008).
The increase in the use of the police tactic will reduce
consensual policing (Bullock, 1996). This has the potential to
298 The Police Journal, Volume 82 (2009)
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