Following a super-complaint by the Criminal Justice Alliance, the police are under investigation for their use of s 60 suspicionless stop and search powers
Writing in this week’s NLJ, Neil Parpworth, of Leicester De Montfort Law School, looks into who can make a super-complaint, what is a ‘designated body’ for this purpose, and who will investigate.
Parpworth notes there are currently seven separate super-complaints against the police under investigation in the UK.
He focuses on police use of s 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. What does this power comprise, how is it exercised, and how often is it used?
Parpworth assesses the investigation, which was ‘thorough’ apart from one aspect—they were unable to find anyone who had actually been stopped under s 60 to speak to them. He writes: ‘Given that there have been nearly 723,000 s 60 stop and searches during the past 22 years, this is both surprising and disappointing.’
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