Don't despair, at-least the criminals have rights

‘If you are stopped you’ll first be asked where you’re going and what you’ve been doing. The police may then decide to search you but only if they have a good reason, for example, that you fit the profile of a criminal seen in the area, or they think you’re acting suspiciously. You should not be stopped or searched just because of your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, the way you dress or because you’ve committed a crime in the past.’ (Home office, 2009).

At first glance this ‘new power’ given to the Police appears to be (if carried out) a minefield. For the Police to approach an individual or group and exercise their power to search them as the officer feels it necessary to do so, means that the officer is taking a great risk. If the search leads to a weapon being found then a potential violent crime has been averted, however if the officer finds no weapon then they are in risk of having their motives for the search questioned, which can lead to allegations of discrimination.

As the Home Office website states, ‘You should not be stopped or searched just because you’ve committed a crime in the past.’ However this would appear to cause problems for the Police officer as when confronted with a person who has a previous record for violent crime or any other crime which has made the individual known to the Police, the officer must decide if the grounds for the search are strong enough to conduct the search. The Spectator magazine published in an article entitled, Political correctness is the real failure of stop and search. ‘Indiscriminate searches are marginalizing young men, and suggests that – as 90 percent of knife murderers are previously known to police - searching targeted youths would get better results.’

However, who would wish to risk their career on whether or not an individual is carrying a weapon based on very little objective evidence? Many wouldn’t, so we are now faced with the issue of having a Police force with the power to stop and search but in many cases will not use that power as they are afraid of the potential consequences.

Now I am aware of the inherent risks of adopting this out-look towards stop and search as the next step would appear to be an extreme one. And this is an almost complete disregard for the human rights of the individual and allow Police officers to stop and search anyone using any criteria they wish, they do not have to justify themselves they can merely exercise their power. This will leave the Police trapped between a Rock and a hard place as they can either opt for the (to use the Spectators term) ‘politically correct’ method and risk missing potential violent offenders because they fear using their own powers, or they can opt for the extreme and risk destroying any potential bond between the Police and communities.