Recommendation 61 in Hackney - MPA six month review

101/03
09 December 2003

Six months after Recommendation 61 was implemented in Hackney the Metropolitan Police Authority, together with Hackney Borough Council, will hold a public meeting to establish how communities have reacted to all police stops being recorded in their Borough.

It will be held in Ocean, Mare Street, Hackney on 10 December 2003 at 7.00pm.

Recommendation 61, from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, means that all police stops are recorded by officers and a record of the stop given to the individual. Prior to the implementation of Rec 61 only stops and searches were recorded.

Cecile Wright, Chair of the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board, said:

"Police stops are one of the most contentious policing issues for London’s black and ethnic minority communities and we need to ensure that police use of this very important tool is fair and transparent. Recommendation 61 addresses important issues raised by the use of this emotive police power - such as accurate recording and monitoring, ethnic classification of suspects, and intelligence-led versus random use of the powers.

“The MPA welcomed the implementation of Rec 61 in Hackney, although we did urge the Home Office to introduce a pilot for the whole of London. The MPA and MPS have also implemented Rec 61 in Tower Hamlets, using a technology based recording system and we will be monitoring the progress in that borough too. It is in everyone’s interest - police and public alike - to be clear about what happens when a police officer stops a person in the street.“

Hackney Councillor Julius Nkafu said:

“We are very pleased that Rec 61 was implemented in Hackney. It encourages clarity and transparency, and hopefully will help build trust between the police and the community.

“To make the initiative more successful, the Hackney Monitoring Group must be able to interpret clearly the data and statistics that are being supplied to the group by the officers in Hackney. It is only by doing this that we will be able to gauge the effectiveness of this police tool.”

Notes to editors

1. Rec 61 Implementation

The Metropolitan Police Service is one of seven police services chosen for the initial phase of implementing Recommendation 61 starting on 1 April 2003, testing different methods of recording police stops, either paper-based or utilising new technology, which the Home Office will evaluate in order to choose the most suitable methods for national implementation.

Hackney was the first London borough to record all stops using a new stop recording form designed by the Met. This form is more detailed than the existing stop & search form and the MPA has been monitoring how it has been received by the community in Hackney.

Phased implementation of Rec 61 will enable the Home Office and the police to identify the most effective approaches to recording stops and ways of working that will cause the least inconvenience to the public, develop practices that will encourage public trust and confidence and are not time consuming for both the police and individuals concerned. The most efficient approach identified during the evaluation stages will be used in the subsequent implementation across the police service in England and Wales.

2. The Metropolitan Police Authority discussed with the Home Office initiating a London-wide implementation because the capital is unique in terms of its diversity and complexities. This was not accepted but in response the Authority made the decision to instigate a second borough implementation using a technology-based system. This began in November 2003 in Tower Hamlets. The implementation of Rec 61 in London will take place in 5 phases:

• Phase 1 Paper-based implementation in Hackney on 1 April 2003;
• Phase 2 Implementation and phased evaluation, time scale 3-6 months;
• Phase 3 IT-based implementation in Tower Hamlets 30 November 2003;
• Phase 4 Implementation monitoring and evaluation; and
• Phase 5 Recommended approaches to be approved by the Home Secretary.

The Authority is working to ensure that Recommendation 61 is implemented across the whole of London by Autumn 2004.

3. Official definition of a stop

A police stop is defined by the Home Office as “when an officer requests a person in a public place to account for themselves i.e. their actions, behaviour, presence in an area or possession of anything, a record of the encounter must be completed at the time and a copy given to the person who has been questioned, this is unless there are exceptional circumstances … a record of an encounter must always be made when a person requests it, regardless of whether the officer considers that the criteria set out has been met.”

4. MPA scrutiny of MPS performance and practice in stop and search

The Authority has conducted a scrutiny into the Metropolitan Police Service’s performance and practice in using stop and search across the capital.

On 24 January 2003 the Authority's Co-ordination and Policing Committee agreed the scrutiny’s remit, beginning in February.

The scrutiny was initiated and overseen by the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board (EODB), the MPA committee responsible for matters relating to equal opportunity and diversity issues. It concentrated on five key aspects of stop and search that previous studies have not explored. These are:

• Disproportionality and profiling;
• Use of stop and search data and policing intelligence;
• Cost effectiveness of stop and search;
• Public engagement and information; and
• Determine whether there exists different levels of criminality within different sectors of the population.

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