Stop and search under review
Home Secretary Theresa May will today announce a review into the police use of controversial stop and search powers.
Home Secretary Theresa May will today announce a review into the police use of controversial stop and search powers.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said:
The fact that just 9% of stop-and-searches lead to an arrest clearly demonstrates that the current system is not working.
Under the last Government, stop-and-search spiralled out of control, with hundreds of thousands of innocent people stopped and searched without any good reason.
If public confidence in the police is to be maintained, these sort of powers must be used in a far more targeted way and the pilot schemes already undertaken demonstrate this is possible without jeopardising public safety.
Today's statement is an important step towards ensuring the public, particularly people from ethnic minorities, can have confidence that they can walk the streets without fearing they will be subject to further unjustified use of stop-and-search powers.
The Home Secretary has unveiled a review of controversial stop-and-search powers of police.
A teenager who claims to have been stopped and searched "more than 20 times" has told ITV News he welcomes the government's review.