NLJ this week: Policing the police on stop & search

Parpworth finds that, while the annual total for the past three years has been fairly consistent, Black people were nearly five times more likely than White people to be stopped and searched.

He writes that the ‘hit’ rate or arrest rate ‘following a stop and search has demonstrated very clearly that the police often do not find what they were looking for’. During the past 23 years, the total arrest rate has ranged from a low of 7.8% to a high of 17.1% in 2016/17 and 2017/18. Parpworth notes, therefore, that ‘since these years saw the lowest and next lowest use of stop and search powers, the figures show that when they are used in a more targeted manner, such powers are capable of producing more effective results’.