Reducing stop and search ops a ‘disgrace’
THE dramatic fall in stop and search operations is a “national disgrace”, a police force boss said last night.
Chief Constable Andy Cooke, of Merseyside Police, said officers have lost confidence because the tactic has been“criminalised” and could lead to complaints.
Use of stop and search has plummeted by 79 per cent across the UK in just eight years, after fears minority groups were being racially targeted.
But Mr Cooke insisted the tactic is used only to thwart crime. He said: “For me, the law is very clear, the code of practice is very clear. If an officer has reasonable suspicion that a person has items on them that they shouldn’t have, they can search them.
“Across the country, there’s been a reduction in stop and search, which is for me, pretty much a national disgrace.
“Our communities should have the benefit of being kept safe.
Suspicion
“Here, the vast, vast majority of people that get stopped are young white males because they are the ones committing the criminality.
“If the issue was young black males committing the criminality in a different part of the county, I would ask my staff to search young black males if there was reasonable suspicion.”
Merseyside Police has increased its use of stop and search tactics by 50 per cent in the past year, resulting in the seizure of 100 knives.
“We are one of the few forces to massively increase our stop and search. I’m quite happy about that increase and I want it to be higher,” Mr Cooke said.
“We take a proactive, hardnosed approach to stop and search. Our communities want it.
“You have got to have that really visible approach or people start thinking they can get away with murder.”
The Home Office said that in 2009/10 officers searched 1.4 million people. The total was around 1.5 million in 2008/9. In the year to March 2018, it
was only 282,000.