Stop and search: Home Secretary Suella Braverman urges police to ‘ramp up’ use of powers

The Home Secretary has asked police forces in England and Wales to “ramp up” the use of stop and search powers - despite continued criticism that they disproportionately target black and ethnic minority communities.

In a letter to chief constables, Suella Braverman said officers had her “full support” to deploy the tactics “wherever necessary to prevent violence and save more lives”.

What is stop and search?

Police have the right to stop and search anyone if there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect they’re carrying a weapon, illegal drugs or stolen property.

In some cases (for instance, when there are concerns serious violence could take place) people can be stopped and searched without reasonable grounds - as long as it’s been approved by a senior officer.

But critics of the policy point out that members of black and ethnic minority communities are stopped more often. NationalWorld analysis of official figures found that in the year to March 2021, black people were 13 times more likely than white people to be subject to the measures.

What has Suella Braverman said?

In her letter, Braverman suggested that stop and search was needed to protect young black men from knife crime. In the 12 months to March 2022, 31 of the 99 young people who died in knife attacks were black.

The Home Secretary told police chiefs: “Carrying weapons is a scourge on our society, and anyone doing so is risking their own lives as well as the lives of those around them. This dangerous culture must be brought to a stop”.

“My first priority is to keep the public safe, and people who insist on carrying a weapon must know that there will be consequences. The police have my full support to ramp up the use of stop and search, wherever necessary, to prevent violence and save more lives”.

“Every death from knife crime is a tragedy. That’s why I also back the police in tackling this blight in communities which are disproportionately affected, such as among young black males. We need to do everything in our power to crack down on this violence”.

What’s the reaction been?

In response, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “Knife crime has shot up after 13 years of the Tories, with the biggest increases in the suburbs and counties, destroying lives and devastating families”.

“Yet instead of a serious Government plan to get knife crime back down, the Home Secretary is just writing the police more letters and chasing headlines”.

“The decimation of neighbourhood policing, cuts to youth prevention work, lack of a proper serious violence strategy and lack of action on organised crime under the Tories has allowed knife crime to go up across all communities”.

The Network for Police Monitoring said it was disappointed the government wanted to boost use of what it called “one of the most systematically racist police powers” a few months after the Metropolitan Police was found to be institutionally racist.