UK: Policing the Streets: the use and abuse of police powers(feature)
01 July 1995
[All Figures available only in printed format]
Introduction
In 1981 the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure made a number of recommendations to expand police powers and to provide various safeguards against the abuse of the new powers. The recommendations were enacted in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), 1984. Most of the powers came into force on the 1 January 1986. In 1993 the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice recommended further radical changes in police powers and these were implemented in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994 which came into force on 1 January, 1995. Before these latest changes begin to have an impact, it is an opportune moment to examine the use of the expanded police powers which were recommended by the first Royal Commission.
It is an opportune time for another reason. On 7 July Sir Paul Condon, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, announced a new campaign against street robbers and, in a letter inviting community leaders to a meeting to explain his plans, he made the highly controversial statement that::
"It is a fact that very many of the perpetrators of muggings are very young black people who have been excluded form school and/or are unemployed".
This initiative was fully supported by the Home Secretary who said: "Every section of the community - black and white - suffers from street robberies. Political correctness is the great discriminator. It is the enemy of the victims of crime, and its supporters are the friends of the criminal." The Home Secretary, however, failed to look at the official statistics, which his own department publish annually. They suggest the police force for which he is responsible -The Metropolitan Police - is already discriminating against one section of the community and will do so with greater intensity as a result of Condon's new campaign, called Operation Eagle Eye.
Statistical information on the use of police street powers is far from comprehensive. Chief Officers are statutorily required to collect and publish statistics on the use of certain of their powers, but not others. They are required to monitor the use of stops and searches of persons or vehicles and road checks, detention of persons and intimate searches of the persons. Statistics on these aspects are published annually in the Home Office Statistical Bulletins. However, they do not collect and publish figures for 1) people stop but not searched; 2) people who are "voluntarily" searched; or 3) for searches carried out under other legislation.
The police, however, are not required to keep systematic statistics on their most important power - the power of arrest. Despite the legal rhetoric that everyone has the right to go about their lawful business without being deprived of their liberty and taken into custody, except under very clearly defined circumstances, neither of two Royal Commissions recommended that the police publish statistics on the total number of arrests. Nor did they recommend that the police record the outcome of each arrest. This is crucial information if arrests powers are to be monitored systematically.
Although there has never been of any legal requirement, police forces in England and Wales collect statistics on the total number of arrests for all offences in their area, except for the Metropolitan Police, who collect statistics on the arrests for notifiable offences only. These figures were collated by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary and published in his annual reports until 1986. For subsequent years, the Home Secretary has supplied the data in a series of Parliamentary Written Answers.
Arrests in England and Wales
Figure 1 shows the total number of arrests for each year. It shows a very steady increase in the number of arrests over the period. In 1986 there were 1.31 million arrests and by 1994 this figure had increased to a staggering 1.75 million - an increase of nearly half a million peo