Stop and Search ― The Anatomy of a Police Power

Stop and search is often billed as a vital tool in the fight against crime, yet its use remains controversial. Anger and resentment over the misuse of this tactic were widely implicated among the causes of serious public disorder in 1981 and again in 2011, fuelling an ongoing cycle of crisis and reform that has engulfed British policing. This edited collection provides a detailed assessment of stop and search by leading experts in the field. It considers the legal basis of stop and search, the purpose and function of these powers, their effectiveness in tackling crime and their impact on trust and confidence in the police.

Stop and Search: The Anatomy of a Police Power directly addresses some of the most controversial aspects of stop and search, including its disproportionate use on people from black and minority ethnic groups, its role in counter-terrorism policing, and on-going attempts at regulation and reform. While the main focus is on England and Wales, the collection shows that the challenges posed by stop and search are fundamental to the policing of diverse, democratic societies across the globe.

Rebekah Delsol is the program officer for ethnic profiling at the Open Society Justice Initiative, UK.

Michael Shiner is an Associate Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.