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The home secretary’s extension of discriminatory police stop and search powers is mere political grandstanding
To be clear from the outset, stop and search does not effectively reduce serious youth violence. It simply enables the police to aggressively control public space and discriminate against ethnic minorities, and in doing so it damages the relationships between the communities affected and the police.
The recent announcement of the home secretary, Priti Patel, extending stop and search powers under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, is the latest in a line of policy announcements from this government that are designed to attract short-term political support rather than to keep our streets safe and our police forces accountable. These proposals also conveniently remove the safeguards introduced by Theresa May as home secretary in 2014 under the best use of stop and search scheme. At a time when we should be working together for solutions we instead have politicking and legacy denigration. Continue reading...