London-wide roll out of Recommendation 61 – recording all police stops

82/04
17 November 2004

The London wide roll out of Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report will be launched by the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Metropolitan Police Service at 10.30am on Wednesday 17 November 2004 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, London SW1.

Cindy Butts, Deputy Chair of the MPA, John Roberts, lead member of the MPA for Recommendation 61 and Sir Ian Blair, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service will lead the event.

Recommendation 61 states that all police stops should be recorded by officers and a record of the stop given to the individual. At present only stops and searches are recorded.

John Roberts, lead MPA member for Recommendation 61, said:

“The MPA welcomes the implementation of Recommendation 61 and we are very pleased to see the recording of stops finally underway across London.

“Recommendation 61 aims to reinforce confidence in how police deal with London’s communities, making stops more accountable and dealing with issues such as fairness and disproportionality.

“Police stops are one of the most contentious policing issues for London’s ethnic minority communities.

“It creates a perception of unfairness that threatens the acknowledged effectiveness of stops as a policing tactic and damages trust and confidence in the police.

“We need to ensure that police use of this important tactic is fair and transparent.

“It is in everyone’s interests – police and public alike – to be clear about what happens when a police officer stops a person in the street.”

Deputy Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said:

“We are an interventionist police service, something that I believe Londoners want, a police service where they see us taking action out on the streets. Equally Londoners want a police service in which they can trust. I am proud of the efforts that we have made over recent years to improve our relationship with the communities of London. Born from the Macpherson Inquiry into the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence, I believe that Recommendation 61 is vital to continuing this work.

“Londoners will have more confidence in our stop practices when they can see we are being totally transparent. By providing a written record of stop and account interactions we will be able to build an even greater level of trust within the community. Most importantly, Londoners must leave these stops with the perception that they have been treated fairly and with dignity.”

The MPS was one of seven police services chosen by the Home Office to implement pilot sites for Recommendation 61, starting in April 2003. In London Recommendation 61 has been running in two pilot sites, the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, since April and December 2003 respectively. Hackney has been piloting a paper-based recording method while a technology-based system was trialed in Tower Hamlets. Borough based monitoring panels have been assessing each pilot and evaluating how it has been received by their communities

Notes to editors

Recommendation 61 - recording police stops

Recommendation 61 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report called for the police to record all stops as well as searches. The Home Office implemented seven pilot sites for Recommendation 61 across the country in phases beginning in April 2003. The Metropolitan Police Service was one of seven police services chosen for the initial phase of implementation.

The aim of the pilot sites was to evaluate the most effective way of recording stops. The seven areas chosen for the initial implementation tested different methods of recording police stops, either paper-based or utilising new technology, which the Home Office evaluated in order to choose the most suitable methods for national implementation, due in April 2005.

Implementation in London

Pilot site implementation in London began in the borough of Hackney on 1 April 2003 using a paper-based recording method. The Metropolitan Police Authority discussed with the Home Office initiating a London-wide implementation because we believe 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 Tower Hamlets in December 2003.

Phased implementation of Recommendation 61 enabled the Home Office and the police to identify the most effective approaches to recording stops and ways of working that 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 Authority has worked to ensure that Recommendation 61 would be implemented across the whole of London, with a phased roll out, beginning on 1 October 2004.

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."

Recording police stops

New police stop recording forms were designed by the MPS and were trialled in Hackney and Tower Hamlets. This form is more detailed than the MPS stop & search form and it was monitored by the MPA to gauge how it was received by the communities in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.

Filming facilities for Recommendation 61 will be available. Please contact Anna de Vries, MPS Directorate of Public Affairs: 020 7321 9056.

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