Crime Bill ‘could further harm public trust in police’
FORMER police chiefs have warned parts of a controversial Bill could further undermine trust in forces and “exacerbate” serious violence.
The group of ex-police leaders, senior officers and advisers have written to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, to express their concerns about some of the proposals in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill – which the House of Lords will continue to consider today. The Bill contains a raft of measures aimed at overhauling the criminal justice system as part of the Government’s efforts to make the streets safer.
The proposals prompted widespread protests earlier this year, with some claiming the Bill would hand the authorities too much power to prevent peaceful demonstrations.
Signatories – including Lord Paddick, the former deputy assistant commissioner of the Met, and Leroy Logan, the former Met superintendent who was a founding member and the first chairman of the National Black Police Association – have asked Ms Patel to reconsider measures in the Bill that could “undermine the work police are doing to prevent and reduce serious violence, and put already marginalised communities at further risk of harm”.
“As experts on police use of force, racial profiling, and stop and search, we believe that this Bill has dangerous implications for the fight against serious violence, an issue that demands police work in service to, not against, the communities facing its harms,” the letter said.
The group warns placing a legal duty on police and public bodies such as councils, criminal justice bodies and health and fire services to tackle serious violence and share intelligence and data could “negatively affect relationships” between the police and the public, and their counterparts in other authorities.
On proposed Serious Violence Reduction Orders – intended to make it easier to stop and search those who have previously been convicted of carrying a knife – the letter said: “When stop and search powers are misused, they can be counterproductive, a waste of time and resources and, most importantly, damage relationships between the police and the public.”
Jun Pang, a policy and campaigns officer at human rights group Liberty, claimed there was a growing “chorus of opposition” to the “oppressive” legislation, adding: “The new police powers the Bill creates will lead to harassment and oppressive monitoring of young people, working-class people and people of colour – especially black people.”