Progress report on MPA Stop and Search Scrutiny

Report: 9
Date: 16 October 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides an update on the progress of the MPA Stop and Search Scrutiny.

A. Recommendations

That the Board note the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

1. The Stop and Search Scrutiny Panel has held five hearing sessions to date. A further eight sessions are planned before the completion of the final report in February 2004.

2. The Scrutiny Panel has already heard a number of representations from the MPS, from senior officers at New Scotland Yard, Borough Commanders, officers on patrol and new recruits. It has also heard from those most affected – young people, including representatives from the MPS Youth Independent Advisory Group and from Black and minority ethnic community youth organisations. It has also heard from community organisations and professional associations long concerned with stop and search practice, as well as the most eminent academic authorities on the topic. Appendix 1 provides a complete list of witnesses.

3. In building a chronological process to the Panel’s work, these first sessions largely focussed on obtaining the information and evidence on the present state of affairs and the initiatives being undertaken by the MPS and others. The body of knowledge accrued from these sources will help to provide the Panel with the foundation for a causal analysis of the factors leading to disproportionality. The remaining evidence hearing sessions will focus on the consequences and impact of disproportionality and towards developing focussed recommendations on the five specific issues in the Panel’s terms of reference. A particular emphasis will be placed on obtaining evidence from a range of communities including the Bangladeshi and other Asian communities, the Irish community, etc.

4. A number of themes have emerged from the sessions thus far, including issues of:

• Racial profiling
• Explanatory factors, other than race, offered for contributing to disproportionality e.g. socio-economic factors, ‘street population’, etc.
• Statutory authority, policies & guidelines on stop and search (with opinions varying from favouring an extension of the power to totally eliminating it)
• Effectiveness of stop and search as a police tool and its use as a measure of police performance
• Role of intelligence and briefings in directing stops and searches
• Role of stops and searches in providing criminal intelligence
• Adequacy of police training
• Impact of stop and search on individuals and communities disproportionately affected
• Impact on community - police relations and on the trust and confidence in the police
• The role of central government
• Localised solutions of community – police dialogue
• Community accountability and monitoring
• Community education and awareness

5. Based on the evidence presented to the Scrutiny Panel thus far, the Panel is finding itself in the difficult position of having two very different kinds of conversation.

6. The Panel has heard significant contradictions between the expressed non-discriminatory values, norms, practices and experiences presented by the MPS and the experiences articulated by community representatives particularly those from the Black, minority and ethnic communities.

7. A significant divide has become apparent to the Scrutiny Panel between the accounts of managerial efficiency and professional competence presented by the police on the one hand and the experience of police discrimination and unfair and antagonistic treatment that have been articulated by some members of the public on the other. Given the vast majority of those stopped and searched are innocent of any crime. The Panel has been told that the consequence of this is that the practice is seen as one of the most important influences in damaging community-police relations generally and with racial minority communities in particular, and a major contributor to reducing the levels of community trust and confidence in the police.

8. The Scrutiny Panel has heard testimony from community representatives, particularly young Black ethnic minority people, that confirm the validity of the most recent statistics of the disproportionality in stop and search with experiential knowledge.

9. On the other hand, the MPS have presented stop and search practice within the context of pursuing effective police work, protecting residents, arresting criminals and preventing crime. Police witnesses to the Scrutiny Panel have articulated the dilemma they face in trying to disentangle the requirements of effective policing while at the same time making certain that there is absolutely no racial bias in stop and search activity.

10. Over the last few years, the MPS have made massive efforts and expended considerable resources in its attempts to ensure a non – discriminatory service. Senior managers have accepted that there may indeed still be the occasional ‘bad apple’. However, the Scrutiny Panel were reassured repeatedly that the police do not engage in racial profiling or treat minorities differently. They were confident in their explanations and justifications for the ‘legitimate’ disproportionality that existed and were firmly of the view that this was not based on differential treatment.

11. Community witnesses have suggested to the Scrutiny Panel that the disproportionality of stop and search rates identifies a collective pattern of police policy and practice that is still managing to operate beneath the radar that is usually employed to detect and address harmful racially discriminatory practices.

12. A recurring question being put before the Panel is whether institutional racism – as reflected in the policies, priorities and practices of the Metropolitan Police Service –is the primary cause of disproportionality in stop and search rates? The evidence to date, while far from conclusive, has identified a number of contradictions and challenges which the Scrutiny Panel will need to disentangle and make sense of as the evidence hearings draw to a conclusion.

13. This is the context within which the Scrutiny Panel finds itself in trying to understand the current policies and practices of the MPS with regard to stop and search. One of the central questions for the Scrutiny Panel is perhaps that of understanding and determining the nature of bias based policing. This is one of those aspects of stop and search practice that may appear to be the most problematic, but the most important to confront, as the Scrutiny Panel begins to identify the appropriate strategies for improving the nature of police - public contacts generally, and stop and search specifically.

C. Equality and diversity implications

The Scrutiny Panel will contribute significantly to the MPA’s efforts in recommending approaches to stop and search that will reduce the perceptions of unfair and discriminatory police practice and increase the level of trust and confidence in the police by the Black, minority and ethnic communities specifically, and by the public as a whole.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications to this report.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Tim Rees, MPA.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1

Witnesses Appearing Before the MPA Scrutiny Panel on Stop & Search

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