Police given new stop and search powers

Wider measures focus on repeat offenders, who face automatic jail sentences to tackle rise in knife crime

POLICE stop and search powers are to be increased so that they can target repeat offenders under government plans.

Officers will be able to stop and search knife criminals previously convicted of carrying weapons, and if caught and successfully prosecuted they will face automatic jail sentences under “two strikes” laws. The move comes amid record levels of knife crime with more than 45,000 offences in the year to December 2019.

There has also been an increase in repeat offenders, with the proportion of criminals caught with knives who had previously been convicted rising from 20 per cent in 2010 to 29 per cent in the year to March 2020.

Announcing the plan, Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, said: “Knife crime has a devastating effect on young lives and our neighbourhoods. Our ambition is for these new powers to transform the way stop and search is used by targeting the small number of the most serious and persistent criminals.

“The law-abiding majority should not have to live in fear, which is why we are taking action keep them safe.”

Under the proposals, courts will get powers to issue serious violence reduction orders (SVROS) on any offenders convicted of carrying a knife or an offensive weapon, including those who have received non-custodial sentences such as community orders or suspended sentences.

Police could then stop and search those who are subject to an SVRO to check if they are unlawfully carrying a knife or offensive weapon again. The courts will be free to decide the exact length of the orders.

If caught and convicted a second time, offenders could then expect to receive a custodial sentence under the existing “two strikes” legislation brought in by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. The new stop and search powers were promised in the Conservative 2019 manifesto and will now be subject to consultation running until Nov 8.

The number of stop and searches by police has increased by 40 per cent since 2017-18 from five per 1,000 of the population to seven per 1,000, a total of more than 375,000 in 2018-19.

Theresa May, when home secretary, put a brake on stop and search amid concerns that it was being used disproportionately against ethnic minority communities.

However, her successor Sajid Javid moved to increase use of the power by making it easier for officers to search people without reasonable suspicion in places where serious violence may occur. It made it easier to use so-called “section 60” checks, where for a limited period of time officers can search anyone in a certain area to prevent violent crime.

Under the rules, inspectors are able to authorise the use of section 60. Currently, more senior officers have to give approval.

There is also a lower threshold. Police will only need to reasonably believe serious violence “may” occur, not that it “will”.

“Baying mobs” emboldened by the Black Lives Matter movement are confronting police during stop and searches, according to a senior police officer.

Ch Supt, Roy Smith said a crowd gathered and became hostile when he attended a 999 call recently and detained a black teenager to stop and search him.

“It was the usual stuff that we’re getting at the moment,” he told The Times.

The crowd began chanting that the teenager couldn’t breath during the search, in echoes of the George Floyd arrest, according to Mr Smith. He subsequently retrieved a knife from the teenager. “I actually went outside and I held it up to show it to them. I said: ‘Ladies and gentleman this could have been the knife that killed one of your children.’”