UK: Re-interpreting stop and search statistics (feature)
01 September 2000
In 1999 the report of the Inquiry into the Matters arising from the Death of Stephen Lawrence (Macpherson Report) was published and concluded that there was institutional racism within the Metropolitan police. One of the specific areas of concerns, which it highlighted, was the discriminatory use of stops and searches. The Report argued that:
"It is pointless for the police service to try and justify the disparity in the figures purely or mainly in terms of the other factors which are identified
It went on to argue that any attempt to explain away the disparity was sending out the wrong signals:
"Nobody in the minority ethnic community believes that the complex arguments, which are sometimes used to explain the figures for stop and search, are valid.. Attempts to justify the disparities through the identification of other factors, whilst not been seen vigorously to address the discrimination that is evident, simply exacerbates the climate of distrust."
Shortly after the publication of the Macpherson Report the Home Office commissioned the largest ever research programme into stops and searches. The overall programme led to the publication of six reports:
- The Impact of Stops and Searches on Crime and Community;
- An Evaluation of Recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry on Stops and Searches;
- The Views of the Public on Stops and Searches;
- Police Stops and Decision-making and Practice;
- Profiling Populations Available for Stops and Searches;
- Managing the Use and Impact of Searches: A review of force interventions.
The Home Office also published a Briefing Note Police Stops and Searches: Lessons from a Programme of Research, which brings together the main conclusions and recommendations from the programme as a whole within a wider discussion about public confidence, legality and effectiveness.
The stop and search differential
Since the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, all forty three police forces in England and Wales have been required to collect statistics on the use of a number of police powers: stops and searches of people and vehicles, road checks, detention of persons and intimate body searches. Every year since 1987 the Home office has produced a Statistical Bulletin recording the details. In 1997 the Home Office began publishing a new series entitled Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System. These reports provide information on the ethnic appearance of those stopped and searched and arrested. Statewatch carried a comprehensive analysis of the ethnic data for 1996/97 and 1997/98 (Statewatch, vol 8 no 3/4 and vol 9 no 1). It showed that for both years there was a disproportionate number of black people stopped and searched and arrested compared white people.
The Home Office, however, has consistently argued that the stop and search figures must be treated with caution on the grounds that they are unreliable and subject to misinterpretation. Quoting from Home Office research by Fitzgerald and Sibbitt, it argued that searches of white people were more likely to be under-recorded than those of black people and that the use of the power varied by location, time of day and 'legitimate targeting' and therefore this explained the differential impact. More crucially, the research suggested that there might be no clear relationship between the "population at risk" of being stopped and the population of an area.
More recently, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary has joined in the debate with a report entitled Policing London: Winning Consent. It recommended that the issue of disproportionality should be explored further. In caustic language it pointed out that the Metropolitan Police was now left with the:
"multiple problem of addressing the disproportion... whilst isolating the variable factors that may quite rationally account for some of the disproportion, in order to reach a judgement as to what part of the disp