I’m a police officer, and I fear increased powers of stop and search will undermine public trust | Andy George

The government must listen: community engagement is the only way to cut serious crime in the UK’s most deprived areas

• Andy George is president of the National Black Police Association

I wonder how many times you’ve been “stopped” in your life. I wonder what comes to mind when I ask that. The chances are it depends on your race. Black men will know exactly what I’m talking about, and for all too many, being stopped and searched by police is a routine element of their daily lives. One young boy from south London has been stopped and searched 30 times over two years. That’s more than once a month. He is only 14.

Stop and search has been a controversial feature of policing for decades. You might think it was being reduced, in a post-Macpherson, post-Black Lives Matter world, where people have been talking about how to decrease the grossly disproportionate overpolicing of black communities for so long. But shockingly, provisions in the policing bill will widely increase its use and water down the need for suspicion in a number of ways. If it passes, the bill will enable police to stop and search people subject to certain orders at any time without any suspicion; and anyone at all in a certain area, if they believe certain types of protests might take place nearby.

Andy George is president of the National Black Police Association

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3qTaKCY