Debate briefing: are enhanced Stop and Search powers the answer to the rise of violent crime in London?
Twice a month, the Great Debaters Club hosts a public debate on a topical issue dividing public opinion as part of the club’s ‘Debating London’ series. The audience are presented with a dilemma facing real-life decision-makers that they must vote on to resolve with the help of our panel.
Instead of inviting guest speakers to sit on this panel, we ask members of our training programme to defend the competing perspectives shaping the debate in their own words. We then invite our audience to interact with those perspectives by asking questions and advancing their own opinions with our speakers staying ‘in character’ throughout when responding to them.
By the end of the evening, we measure success not based on which side wins the debate, but by how confident the audience are to make a final decision.
This month’s debate is about the recent rise in violent crime in London and whether the police should be actively encouraged to use their powers to stop and search anyone — even if they are not suspected of committing an offence.
Why are we talking about this today?
London has seen a surge in knife and gun-related deaths in 2018, leading to unfavourable comparisons with New York City, which has traditionally had a far higher murder rate than the Capital. A furious debate has raged about the causes of this surge in crime: technology companies have been blamed for not taking down incendiary videos made by rival gangs, while the government has been blamed for cutting police budgets and, by extension, police numbers.
However, the question remains what should the police be doing right now to curb this rise in crime, while long term solutions are developed?
What has this got to do with Stop and Search?
One of the most direct ways police confiscate weapons used for violent crimes is by stopping and searching people on the street, provided they have a good reason for suspecting their involvement in a criminal offence.
However, the police have been frequently criticised for abusing this power due to the disproportionate number of black people and members of other ethnic minorities who have been stopped and searched, but not arrested.
Indeed, one of the most vocal critics of this policy back in 2014 was then Home Secretary and current Prime Minister, Theresa May. As a result, according to National Police Chiefs’ Council chair Sara Thornton, police officers “ feel overly cautious about using a power that has been subject to so much political, and often polarised, debate” at a time when it is seen as vital to stemming the rising tide of violence in London.
The Prime Minister has subsequently come under pressure to throw her support behind not just the use of standard stop and search powers, but enhanced ‘Section 60’ powers that allow the police to stop anyone within a given locality and time period — without needing to give any reason.
The theory runs that this would allow the police to act on intelligence from within the community to act before a crime is committed and take preventive measures that would make their presence felt and deter any further violence.
Who opposes this idea and why?
For one, the National Black Police Association president, Tola Munro, who argues that the increased use of Stop and Search “cannot resolve the issue on its own — nor stop young people from areas not associated with knife crime or violence carrying weapons to protect themselves.”
More broadly, civil rights groups, like Liberty, claim the more powers you give to police, the more likely they are to be abused, causing huge damage to in the communities most affected by them and straining relations between the two.
In the meantime, placing the focus on enhancing Stop and Search powers, they say, distracts from the real causes of the surge in violent crime and the solutions that need to be deployed to address them.
This debate will take place in the Tea House Theatre in Vauxhall from 7.00 pm to 9.30 pm on Wednesday 18th April. Admission is free and open to all, but we ask you book in advance — by signing up here — to help us manage the number of attendees.
