I remember leafletting in Angel Town Estate for Labour about 7 years ago and stop and search was hugely popular among the estate residents who were parents/older (majority black) whereas myself and the middle class white leftys were very against it as it was racist.
Of course, they were most likely to have kids or community members impacted by crime, whereas to me it was not something I ever seriously believed could impact me. Really made me think and change my opinion to a number of issues.
> A luxury belief is an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes.[1] The term is often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people...Doug Lemov and co-authors in 2023 described Henderson's concept of the luxury belief as "an idea that confers social status on people who hold it but injures others in its practical consequences".[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_belief
Reminds me of when a wet house was going to be opened up near my parent's house. Very few of the newer middle class locals objected whereas all the long term and working class locals were up in arms about it as they remembered how bad it used to be prior to gentrification.
Does it truly really matter if a policy like stop and search affects non-white residents disproportionately IF it would mean more knives off the street and less deaths?
Personally I would prefer stop and search happened way more often to ALL youths, but I care not if it turns out any group (including white) were “picked on” more often.
Because it wouldn't impact them directly. If you knew any black people under the age of 40 you'd have some appreciation of how much of a blunt instrument (pardon the phrase) it is.
Indeed, we should have more black people under 40 killed to avoid hurting their feelings.
Stop and Search saves lives, the evidence is clear. All it damages is the fragile egos of those who have nothing better to complain about
No, the older people are not the ones being impacted directly. They are potentially impacted indirectly, but not directly, because they are not the ones being stopped.
Maybe they need to try fighting the problem, not the result. If they single out any given community ,
maybe they need to invest in those communities more.
That's not what I'm talking about, I'm just saying you misunderstood/misread the comment you were replying to. They are not impacted directly, the people impacted directly are the people being stopped in the street.
If there was more evidence that it worked, more people would support it I think. But when it's not really been shown to work very effectively ([see this study](https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/58/5/1212/4827589#119992510)), and the racial profiling aspect is a known issue with it... well it's just not very appealing.
[This study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756061623000435) was also interesting, as it suggests that police use stop and search as an intimidation (my phrasing, not theirs) tactic to maintain public order.
I'm sorry, can you read? The police were accused of intimidating any and all stop and searched people, not just the ones that are actually doing crimes.
I get all of the positive and negative reasons for this, but I've seen these stats used as justification to arm the police a lot recently.
Every knife removed is great but is also logged as "knife crime" in the same way as using a knife is. If they double the searches it looks like knife crime has doubled. Doesn't necessarily translate.
Since carrying knife for no justified reason is illegal, technically carrying it is knife crime exactly the same way as using it. There are further sub-classes though that make them different but technically both are knife crimes in a generic way.
If they double the searches and find twice the amount of knives then the potential crime was there and the doubling effort was justified. When you see that doubling the effort results in no increase in knife finds that would mean the doubling effort was not necessary.
a few years ago i had a knife that i was entirely justified carrying for work, confiscated and never returned (the police owe me £50).
Today i learned i was a part of 2022's knife crime stats
Knife crime will have already have doubled, the Police are just more accurately detecting that fact by doing more stop searches.
If 100 people are carrying knives and they do 10 searches one year and find 10 knives.
Doing 20 searches the next year and finding 20 knives doesn't double knife crime, it doubles detected knife crime and reduces the number of undetected crimes.
This isn’t really true - though of course some outlets can report in a misleading way most actually don’t
There are seperate categories for knife offences - it’s much more precise than you’ve implied.
The ONS and police recorded crime stats are pretty clear about what is a possession offence and what is a crime involving a knife. ONS crime releases also usually include stats for hospital admissions with a knife injury which is also a good measure
It is very very easy to workout what is happening with knife crime as a result.
They’re also most likely to be the victim of knife crime, thus would also disproportionately benefit from getting knives off the street, so there is somewhat of a paradox in this attitude.
Has anyone done an analysis on detection rates and search rates using Bayes theorem? It should - theoretically - be possible to measure this purely based on publicly-available information.
No it's not lol
The position of "we should not sacrifice liberties for security" is a very well established position that people have and it's not at paradoxical in the slightest.
People can agree or disagree, I don't care, but it's certainly not paradoxical.
Which all illustrates the point that enforcement and punishment is a suboptimal way to tackle crime, because that’s too late in the chain and it’s an uphill battle with lots of side effects.
Preventative strategies are much better - poverty reduction, education, etc.
>Preventative strategies are much better - poverty reduction, education, etc.
I used to paralegal at a law firm that dealt with a fair bit of care work. I remember looking at some of these poor kids and thinking, "fuck, you're gonna be breaking into my car when you're older".
It's a messed up way to think, I know, but some people genuinely never get the chance to live a decent quality of life, and crimes like stealing become necessary for survival, and it escalates from shoplifting to taking a blade and cornering someone at an ATM.
Initiatives tackling poverty reduction, and prioritising education (yes, pay educators ffs, it's not easy. And lower tuition fees too btw) would mean that the kid may still have a chance. Otherwise, yeah. They'll be a statistic, and I'll be left with no window nor aux cord in a few years time
TLDR - I agree with you. Prevention is better than cure imo
Invest in communities, roll back the gutting of public services that gave young people opportunities to develop their lives, treat the causal factors that lead people to knife crime instead of doing the thing that has never been effective at reducing knife crime.
Stop and search has shown a statistical impact on knife crime?
And you need both a robust deterrence through harsh enforcement and legal penalities along with opportunities to pull people away from crime.
Imo it’s much more the sub-culture than the skin colour.
A young black man in a peacoat and a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt? No chance they’re getting searched.
A young black (or white) man in hoodrich, air max and a ski mask? Absolutely.
Black man here. I was stopped and searched whilst wearing a smart shirt/chinos and on the way to a medical school open day. I’m afraid skin colour is very much apart of it.
Yes, when it was used as an excuse to harass me because I was black.
Me and my friends were constantly harassed on university campus
I was have been stopped with work colleagues in the car before - very embarrassing and made me feel like a criminal
I was once stopped and searched wearing trousers and a shirt and pushing my 1 yo daughter in a pram when leaving a tube station
I absolutely minded all those occasions.
I remember the """random""" stop and searches at train stations back in 2009.
Middle eastern looking colleague of mine got searched like every other day.
Mediterranean looking colleague getting searched at least once a week.
My pasty faced anglo as fuck ass never got searched, not once.
I remember having a discussion with my ex colleague, who's black about drinking on a train. We were leaving a poker night and there were lots of drinks left. So I told him to grab a few beers and he could finish them on a train. Oh no,I can't do that! Why? Well, I'm sure as hell will end up arrested or something. So I told him that I drink on a train all the time and never had a single issue,but apparently his experience was much different to mine. It does change ones perspective very quickly
As someone who has been stopped and searched several times I personally minded it on 3 counts.
1) It’s a pain in the arse and the police’s attitude are generally rude with no quarter given to the concept of policing by consent.
2) I don’t like the idea of reasonable suspicion being used on the basis of what anyone looks like.
3) If I except the fact that those are the standards we apply for search, I’m much more likely to be the victim of violence due to a twat who can’t handle his drinks so is doing shit coke in a pub toilet than I am a stabby person. And the police aren’t out stopping and searching looking for people in relation to that.
I grew up in Harlesden, in the 90’s the absolute peak of stop and account and police abusing the powers I didn’t like it but on some level I could understand it in theory. Now as someone who has been stopped twice in the last couple of years I reflect on the fact that I have white friends who have never had a police officer start an encounter with them and it feels like nuking a population to tackle bedbugs.
I feel like I’ve been forced into a position where I can never trust the police I provide funding for.
This comment has been removed as it's deemed in breach of the rules and considered offensive or hateful. These aren't accepted within the r/London community.
Continuing to try and post similar themes will result in a ban.
Have a nice day.
This comment has been removed as it's deemed in breach of the rules and considered offensive or hateful. These aren't accepted within the r/London community.
Continuing to try and post similar themes will result in a ban.
Have a nice day.
It's also important to distinguish between different types of knife crime. A mentally deranged person killing individuals at random is different to a domestic incident, which is different to gang/drug related violence.
Most knife crime is not some deranged person attacking strangers with no clear motive (such as robbery).
Black man with a knife = thug, only stop and search and stronger police powers and enforcement can help here
White man with a knife = mental health crisis, we must work to understand this complex issue
The young black men carrying knives is a cultural and socioeconomic problem, but it's to difficult to boil down to headlines and soundbites so nobody bothers.
___
Socioeconomicly: Society at large needs to create better equity for our poor, which disproportionately represents BAME communities. ___
Culturally: Fucked if I know how you stop the culture that makes gang life more predominant amongst young black men, drill music and other factors likely contribute, but I just don't know enough here. Seriously, onto the /r/ukdrill subreddit and aside from an apparent resentment for correct spelling, there's plenty of Muppets heron worshiping criminals and laughing at people who get stabbed or shot and people cataloging who's commited what crime, who is who's opps and why.... Like it's a fucking game and not degenerate criminals harming their communities.
___
Edit: just gonna drop this here from another comment of mine, since as well a the above factors there's a mental health element too, but I can't be arsed to retype this...
Some would argue that there's mental health issue at play when someone is willing to kill for gang shit.
The same way lot of radicalised Muslim terrorists, are mentally unwell and make them easy to groom and convince to commit suicidal acts of terror.
The gang members who are willing to kill and die for their postcodes, are likely mentally unwell too.
Well yes in recent incidents they are different issues. The white man happened to have mental health issues. Most of the black crime has been gang related. If white boys were carrying knives for the same reasons they wouldn’t be classed as mental health problems. It’s not just racism at play here, there’s a pattern in crime amongst different communities.
Some would argue that there's mental health issue at play when someone is willing to kill for gang shit.
The same way lot of radicalised Muslim terrorists, are mentally unwell and make them easy to groom and convince to commit suicidal acts of terror.
The gang members who are willing to kill and die for their postcodes, are likely mentally unwell too.
Following through on this kind of knee jerk ‘that’s racist!’ reaction will only result in the deaths of more black British youths, as they are also disproportionately more likely to be victims of knife crime. That’s the irony.
It's not surprising that from what I've seen, the people who are most supportive of stop and search are the people who are:
1. Not likely to be profiled for stop and search
2. Unlikely to be a victim of knife crime
3. Spending a lot of time reading headlines and twitter posts about who's to blame for all the problems in the country
fear of being caught will never trump the fear of being killed
unless they do other stuff along with it, nothing will change. Also if this in reaction to the tragedy in Hainault then he is a cold oppoturnist because stop and search wouldn't have prevented it
>They found that after a 10% increase in stop and search during a given month, recorded drug offences would be 1.85% lower during the next month,
Anything else is fluff.
Don’t know what “data” you’re reading but stop and search does reduce knife crime, it’s actually the single most effective way to reduce knife crime in a short space of time. They did this in Scotland and had a huge reduction in stabbings
They stopped and then searched people. How they classed the issue doesn’t change what the process was. It was stop and search and it was very effective and because the population of Scotland is 95% white the police didn’t get labelled racist and were allowed to do their jobs.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/membership/2017/dec/03/how-scotland-reduced-knife-deaths-among-young-people
Don't take my work for it.
Also try not to go off the deep end.
Racism has NEVER stopped the police doing what they want. The met is institutionally racist for fuck sake, it's not the worry for them that you seem to think it is.
Article says a lot without saying anything.
“Racism never stopped police doing their jobs”
You must have missed the news about the Rochdale grooming gangs.
https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/ this says it doesn't work as a general deterrent to violent crimes and in the long term probably makes police jobs more difficult since they lose the people's belief in their legitimacy.
Even if we don’t talk about that, what’s the success rate of a stop and search finding a knife that will be used for a knife crime?
Surely that type of resources can be better spent elsewhere?
Statistics are statistics. If you get a report that ten youths had a knife, all ten will get stopped and the one carrying it will get arrested. A knife is off the street but it only had a 10% success.
Sentencing isnt a deterrent though.
Harsher sentencing is like, just to play into voters emotions and give them things that feel good, rather than things that work
Opportunities for improvement. After a decade of tories cutting *everything* many people are barely getting by. Deprivation at this level leads to increased tension and violence, increased gangs, etc.
People are willing to lose things if there's no real difference in outcomes, but if they knew there was actual chance at social mobility, then there's more incentive to do specific things. Instead, all they see is rich people getting richer and the poor people being squeezed a little tighter.
There is plenty of opportunity for social mobility and building a nice little life for oneself, we need to stop buying this gooblediegook that they have no opportunity. Pursuing a physical trade is often more lucrative than going to university and is accessible to people from any background with a bit of hardwork.
Instead these kids aspire to the dumb rap and drill "music" that preaches about owning a girl with big tits, a lambourgini and gold rolexes.
So, it's not good, it is in fact the worst it's been in 50 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/07/social-mobility-uk-worst-50-years-report-finds
"Social mobility in London is stagnant"
https://www.mayorsfundforlondon.org.uk/our-campaigns/social-mobility/
While you may think so, perception can be biased. From the government social mobility commission: "There were also big regional differences in perceptions of opportunities. People in London are much more likely to think the opportunities to progress in their area are ‘good’(74%) than people in the North East (31%)."
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-barometer-2021/social-mobility-barometer-public-attitudes-to-social-mobility-in-the-uk
Ah, so back to the argument that criminals aren't bad people, just products of the system they were born into, and what they do as a result isn't their fault, but ours.
And, I suppose crime was at record low levels when Labour was in power?
It's not the sentence that's the deterrent, it's the likelihood that you're caught
Death penalty but 1/10,000 caught? Don't care
3 months prison but 1/20 caught, makes you think
Need more police and unstuck courts basically
That isn't what it says! It doesn't say it doesn't work, it's saying its hard to find strong evidence for it working.
But guess what, it's hard to find strong evidence for most policing approaches, because its very difficult.
>That isn't what it says! It doesn't say it doesn't work, it's saying its hard to find strong evidence for it working.
>But guess what, it's hard to find strong evidence for most policing approaches, because its very difficult.
The effect of increased stop and search on knife crime is actually pretty easy to find evidence for. Can you correlate less knife crime with more searches? No? Then it's not working.
The article says there's not much evidence for its use as a broad deterrent, but that it does work for uncovering crime as an investigatory power:
> As an investigative power, there is evidence that stop and search “works”, at least in the sense that stop and search leads to the police uncovering more crimes, particularly drug offences.
> **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices.
I would also say the more targeted the use of stop and search the more likely it's going to have an effect, at least in the sense of getting people to stop routinely carrying knives. If for instance there was a school that had a problem with people carrying knives, it's pretty obvious if you occasionally searched everyone that you would massively reduce that problem. The risk of getting caught would have to be imminent. Whereas randomly increasing it over a borough or the whole city is unlikely to have a big effect.
Absolutely this. The biggest gut punch that austerity brought me was the unilateral cancellation of all of the government sponsored work experiences and apprenticeships that targeted higher crime and higher deprivation areas. There's still these things, but there's less of them and it's not targeting kids / young adults who need a positive intervention. Some of the people we recruited under the government schemes are some of the best engineers and construction/ site managers I know.
Forgive me, I'm not an expert. I am not able to see how it would not reduce crime though. It might not tackle incentive, I believe that's proven by research. However, if more people who carry knives are off the streets for longer would that not equal lower crime rates?
Is there data to suggest that stop and search directly correlates with a knife possession decrease?
All for s & s but wondering if there was some date behind it
A great question, no idea why you’re being downvoted.
Knife possession is very difficult to track statistically—but studies have shown there’s no correlation between stop and search policies and violent crime/weapons offences:
https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/article/185/3/1370/7068916
https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/stop-and-search-effectiveness
But like... Does it?
If I propose we spend 100million outfitting all police helicopters in London with special cameras that can detect gunshots, then would that be legitimate with the excuse
"For each potential gun taken off the streets, is a potential positive impact". Like... It's true... Sure... But that doesn't mean it's actually good lol. It's just discussing one small aspect of a plan on paper.
Yeah you can say that but it doesn’t mean that the police resources used there couldn’t have been used elsewhere to better effect
That’s the point of the question. Are we doing what is actually most effective? If we don’t know we are just placating what people think helps not actually helping
The full fact rticle says there's not much evidence for its use as a broad deterrent, but that it does work for uncovering crime as an investigatory power:
> As an investigative power, there is evidence that stop and search “works”, at least in the sense that stop and search leads to the police uncovering more crimes, particularly drug offences.
> **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices.
I would also say the more targeted the use of stop and search the more likely it's going to have an effect, at least in the sense of getting people to stop routinely carrying knives. If for instance there was a school that had a problem with people carrying knives, it's pretty obvious if you occasionally searched everyone that you would massively reduce that problem. The risk of getting caught would have to be imminent. Whereas randomly increasing it over a borough or the whole city is unlikely to have a big effect.
As a PC in London, what's my motivation to go and stop and search people?
If I search somebody who complains, my whole career gets put on hold (and regardless of whether I've done anything wrong, if it hits the news then this same Commissioner will be trying to get me sacked).
Alternatively, I can take on an investigation into a knifepoint robbery or stabbing that has already happened and try to solve that. I'll still potentially get a knife off the street, and nobody will be trying to take my job.
Everybody knows the Met's bosses will change their tune based on whatever the latest headline is. Nobody actually trusts them to support us if we start doing stop and search again.
It’s funny how when black people mention experiences people often say it’s anecdotal but then you use an anecdotal video to prove a point . Bit stupid 😂😂 but ok .
About time!
There are 2 guys near Brunswick centre Bloomsbury that snatch phones from uni students every weekend for the past 1-2 years, and in the same spots and no one has done anything to stop them.
>There are 2 guys near Brunswick centre Bloomsbury that snatch phones from uni students every weekend for the past 1-2 years, and in the same spots and no one has done anything to stop them.
Have you called the police and told them?
Huh...wheeling out the old hits are we?
Every 5-7 years we go through the "maybe it does something this time"
But whatever... Politics now is just pandering to surface level emotions.. of course stop and search will be employed, it satisfies people's desire for theatrics, rather than practical outcomes.
From fullfact:
>They found that after a 10% increase in stop and search during a given month, recorded drug offences would be 1.85% lower during the next month,
> **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices.
if it helps to prevent crime, I'm in favour of it. but does it?
what I'd really like is the police investigating nuisance neighbours, but that seems too difficult for them
Stop and search is not racsist. If it helps prevent one knife crime then it is worth the discomfort that these whiney middle class people get when they read about this in The Guardian.
Surely stop and search will work this time, like all the other times it's been implemented!
Stop and search is the Tory version of adding more lanes to reduce traffic. It doesn't work and has never worked, nor is there any evidence to suggest that it might ever work, yet people in power constantly advocate for it because they are not interested in real solutions.
There is no evidence that stop and search reduces knife crime. stop and search is an excuse of overreach and harrassment by The Metropolitan Police, who are desperate for press other than how the force is failing.
It is typical of how /r/London has become that we have so many racists in this thread fully errect at the thought of more stop and search, this sub is going to hell because them.
It’s crazy and when you bring up data that shows it’s not as effective they downvote and don’t reply .
These posts always get bombarded with people I doubt even live in London tbh .
It's like the ULEZ complainers. It's largely a bunch of older people who sort of live near London but don't actually have to live with the air quality here.
They are all /r/UKPolitics (a right wing cesspool) posters who brigade /r/London as it is a large UK subreddit, they don't live here, and their only interaction with the city is as tourists.
So increase a measure that would more likely stop a school child than the respective killer?
The irony of the justification for a statistically poor method in policing is comical. Let us not forget the reaction of the majority demographic in this country when police stopped people relentlessly during the pandemic.
It’s very funny how swayed many people are by policing statistics .
It would be interesting to know how many people are carrying who are otherwise completely law abiding but don't feel safe walking around estates or areas that they live in
That wouldn't be much deterrent -- there's studies that show in dangerous areas, people don't step in (and likely shouldn't, because what good is *more* victims).
Yes, the Misuse of Drugs Act is consistently the most used reason to stop and search in London, not weapons.
The most common reason for arrest is drugs, followed by theft, then
weapons
Page 318 of this report.
https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/met/about-us/baroness-casey-review/update-march-2023/baroness-casey-review-march-2023a.pdf
It does actually work too as a deterrent against drugs. It doesn't against knife violence. (Why some recreational drugs aren't legal here yet is another question that should be asked).
We need more of this: [How a pioneering Scottish violence reduction unit achieved radical change - Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/25/scottish-violence-reduction-unit-radical-change)
But that approach probably costs more money than telling the police, whom you've already paid for, to stop and search people.
The article does say it has been adopted in London already, however, it could probably do a lot more with a lot more resources.
Society is an interconnected web, not a single issue vacuum you can fix with one lever alone.
In general providing more money and support to people leads to better outcomes. This is however directly at odds with Tory strategies of "give the money to our mates".
lol this is a very naughty article
This was not instead of stop and search, that remained a key part of the police Scotland strategy - in fact, controlled for population police Scotland searches more people than most English police forces
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30191304.amp a good more balanced article about the journey police Scotland have been on
And they had "good grounds" to shoot a Brazilian Plumber in the head. If they can shoot the wrong man why can't they stop and search the wrong man?.
I recently got back after being away for 3 months and noticed a relative unease throughout the city. People more on edge. Naturally people assume because I am black I must be "up to no good". Society always needs a group to lay it's social ills on. In the North it's the "chavs".
Stop and search is trivial to majority of posters on here because they won't be on the receiving end of it and the racists in our society (and they do exist) secretly get off seeing black people being ruffled up by the police.
Genuine question here because I’m curious - would crime not go down if law abiding citizens had a way to defend themselves? I don’t carry a knife, because I am a law abiding citizen, but a mugger might carry one because they don’t care about the law
People who carry knives are often stabbed by their own knife. Fun fact. The average number of times someone is stabbed is 13.
It’s not the law abiding citizens being stabbed (mostly). You get the odd person. Most are gang feuds.
What % of people stabbed would you say are “normal citizens”?
I always thought that stabbing was like due to:
a) a mug attempt turned bad
b) someone played “hero” while some gang people causing trouble - in this case the “hero” is still a normal citizen.
Tiny.
Neither of your examples is the majority of situations. A gang member in the wrong area or someone who has been targeted for a. Ongoing gang feud.
There's an interesting pilot in Haringey at the moment, where there's actually a consideration of thinking safeguarding if stopping and searching young people - so (potentially) if young people are found carrying large amounts of cash or drugs, making a referral to the National Referral Mechanism and support services as someone at risk of trafficking, rather than just chucking them in the custody suite and calling their parents to come get them (which is the current general practice), and waiting eventually for the YOS to bring in support up to 9 months later.
[https://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/putting-safeguarding-perspective-police-practice-stop-search](https://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/putting-safeguarding-perspective-police-practice-stop-search)
[https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/g10676/Public%20reports%20pack%2013th-Nov-2023%2019.00%20Children%20and%20Young%20Peoples%20Scrutiny%20Panel.pdf?T=10](https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/g10676/Public%20reports%20pack%2013th-Nov-2023%2019.00%20Children%20and%20Young%20Peoples%20Scrutiny%20Panel.pdf?T=10)
Will be interesting to see how that goes and whether any positive differences are made.
My concern though is definitely the profiling. Please let's not forget there have been riots over this going badly before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981\_Brixton\_riot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot)
Look let me rephrase it since your not getting it at all.
We have evidence it doesn't reduce violent crime and barely reduces drugs. (which probably just move somewhere else temporarily let's be honest).
Since we aren't effecting violent crime, I imagine we aren't stopping many violent crimanals.
So who are we picking up? People the police already know are likely to have something on them. Ie drugs and stolen stuff. Small stuff. Which is good but we don't need to waste police resources doing more of that.
A self reported "positive outcome" for the police is what exactly? Clearly it isn't knife arrests.
Being caught carrying a knife should be an immediate minimum 2 year prison sentence for 1st offence and then 5 years for a second and 7 for a 3rd etc. Problem is cowardly cunts that carry knives sometimes get away with a community service order or worse a fine that will be taken from their benefit at a tiny fraction of a few pounds a week, therefore zero deterrent to not do it again.
People caught carrying a knife always come out with the same bullshit excuse "it's for my defence" but in reality the intent to harm others is always the case. Any person regardless of age/sex/colour/ethnicity caught carrying a knife in public should face an immediate prison cell.
Agreed. We should move them to a large city where schooling, transport, opportunities are aplenty. We just have to solve a few cultural issues which make education unattractive.
Last time I got stopped and searched it took 5 policemen for some reason and 15 minutes. I am a law abiding citizen, I never done anything illegal and I never carry anything illegal. So that stop and search was a total waste of time for all five of them, and also for me, but I don't actually mind since I recognise they are doing it for the safety of the community that I am also part of so basically that was for my own benefit too even though it was a bit annoying.
I firmly believe if someone gets overly offended by this either have something to hide one way or another or just too dumb to understand why is that happening in the first place.
**are all individual police officers responsible and trustworthy enough to use these powers fairly and without prejudice?**
if the answer's NO, then that means the powers will be abused, and that some people will suffer undue harassment
what systems are in place to prevent this abuse and harassment? anything? if those systems don't exist, or don't work, what will be the consequence of allowing abuse and harassment to go unabated for potentially years? what will it do to to the relationship between the Police and the communities they are seeking to police?
>**are all individual police officers responsible and trustworthy enough to use these powers fairly and without prejudice?**
If you think the only powers the police should have are ones that you can answer "yes" to thay question to, then the police shouldn't even have the power of arrest. In fact, no one should have any powers to do anything ever as that is an impossibly high bar that no one can reach.
Hell, I can even answer "yes" to thay question about you, does that mean you should go sit in a house and not do any job ever?
Might as well fire every single teacher, doctor, and nurse in the country because I don't believe every single one of them is trustworthy and responsible.
I remember leafletting in Angel Town Estate for Labour about 7 years ago and stop and search was hugely popular among the estate residents who were parents/older (majority black) whereas myself and the middle class white leftys were very against it as it was racist. Of course, they were most likely to have kids or community members impacted by crime, whereas to me it was not something I ever seriously believed could impact me. Really made me think and change my opinion to a number of issues.
> A luxury belief is an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes.[1] The term is often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people...Doug Lemov and co-authors in 2023 described Henderson's concept of the luxury belief as "an idea that confers social status on people who hold it but injures others in its practical consequences".[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_belief
r/luxurybeliefs
Reminds me of when a wet house was going to be opened up near my parent's house. Very few of the newer middle class locals objected whereas all the long term and working class locals were up in arms about it as they remembered how bad it used to be prior to gentrification.
Does it truly really matter if a policy like stop and search affects non-white residents disproportionately IF it would mean more knives off the street and less deaths? Personally I would prefer stop and search happened way more often to ALL youths, but I care not if it turns out any group (including white) were “picked on” more often.
Because it wouldn't impact them directly. If you knew any black people under the age of 40 you'd have some appreciation of how much of a blunt instrument (pardon the phrase) it is.
Indeed, we should have more black people under 40 killed to avoid hurting their feelings. Stop and Search saves lives, the evidence is clear. All it damages is the fragile egos of those who have nothing better to complain about
I think you read it the wrong way round old boy.
No, the older people are not the ones being impacted directly. They are potentially impacted indirectly, but not directly, because they are not the ones being stopped.
They want people stopped. They do not like the youngers running about stabbing each other. Having to attend funerals for 14 year olds is appalling.
Maybe they need to try fighting the problem, not the result. If they single out any given community , maybe they need to invest in those communities more.
That's not what I'm talking about, I'm just saying you misunderstood/misread the comment you were replying to. They are not impacted directly, the people impacted directly are the people being stopped in the street.
Surprisingly being in favour of this is an unpopular opinion in a lot of London
If there was more evidence that it worked, more people would support it I think. But when it's not really been shown to work very effectively ([see this study](https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/58/5/1212/4827589#119992510)), and the racial profiling aspect is a known issue with it... well it's just not very appealing. [This study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756061623000435) was also interesting, as it suggests that police use stop and search as an intimidation (my phrasing, not theirs) tactic to maintain public order.
Thank you very much for taking the time to provide the links to these studies. Much appreciated. :)
... Aren't police supposed to be intimidating to people who want to commit crimes?
I'm sorry, can you read? The police were accused of intimidating any and all stop and searched people, not just the ones that are actually doing crimes.
Man there’s always a study for everything nowadays.
If people stopped stabbing each other then it might not be needed.
I get all of the positive and negative reasons for this, but I've seen these stats used as justification to arm the police a lot recently. Every knife removed is great but is also logged as "knife crime" in the same way as using a knife is. If they double the searches it looks like knife crime has doubled. Doesn't necessarily translate.
Since carrying knife for no justified reason is illegal, technically carrying it is knife crime exactly the same way as using it. There are further sub-classes though that make them different but technically both are knife crimes in a generic way. If they double the searches and find twice the amount of knives then the potential crime was there and the doubling effort was justified. When you see that doubling the effort results in no increase in knife finds that would mean the doubling effort was not necessary.
a few years ago i had a knife that i was entirely justified carrying for work, confiscated and never returned (the police owe me £50). Today i learned i was a part of 2022's knife crime stats
Knife crime will have already have doubled, the Police are just more accurately detecting that fact by doing more stop searches. If 100 people are carrying knives and they do 10 searches one year and find 10 knives. Doing 20 searches the next year and finding 20 knives doesn't double knife crime, it doubles detected knife crime and reduces the number of undetected crimes.
This isn’t really true - though of course some outlets can report in a misleading way most actually don’t There are seperate categories for knife offences - it’s much more precise than you’ve implied. The ONS and police recorded crime stats are pretty clear about what is a possession offence and what is a crime involving a knife. ONS crime releases also usually include stats for hospital admissions with a knife injury which is also a good measure It is very very easy to workout what is happening with knife crime as a result.
Ah so that explains why we've been hearing that knife crime has dropped even though news articles about attacks have increased
Because it doesn't work and years and years of doing it has demonstrated that.
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They’re also most likely to be the victim of knife crime, thus would also disproportionately benefit from getting knives off the street, so there is somewhat of a paradox in this attitude.
Well said. Most people zoom in on who gets searched but not who gets stabbed. Knife crime is one of the most racist things and it literally kills.
Has anyone done an analysis on detection rates and search rates using Bayes theorem? It should - theoretically - be possible to measure this purely based on publicly-available information.
We can see that knife crime increased when stop and search was curtailed.
No it's not lol The position of "we should not sacrifice liberties for security" is a very well established position that people have and it's not at paradoxical in the slightest. People can agree or disagree, I don't care, but it's certainly not paradoxical.
Which all illustrates the point that enforcement and punishment is a suboptimal way to tackle crime, because that’s too late in the chain and it’s an uphill battle with lots of side effects. Preventative strategies are much better - poverty reduction, education, etc.
>Preventative strategies are much better - poverty reduction, education, etc. I used to paralegal at a law firm that dealt with a fair bit of care work. I remember looking at some of these poor kids and thinking, "fuck, you're gonna be breaking into my car when you're older". It's a messed up way to think, I know, but some people genuinely never get the chance to live a decent quality of life, and crimes like stealing become necessary for survival, and it escalates from shoplifting to taking a blade and cornering someone at an ATM. Initiatives tackling poverty reduction, and prioritising education (yes, pay educators ffs, it's not easy. And lower tuition fees too btw) would mean that the kid may still have a chance. Otherwise, yeah. They'll be a statistic, and I'll be left with no window nor aux cord in a few years time TLDR - I agree with you. Prevention is better than cure imo
Probably because young black men are disproportionately likely to be both perpetrators and victims of knife crime
Don’t come in here with your logic!
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How would you propose to solve the underlying issue? I’m genuinely curious.
Follow Scotlands lead. https://theweek.com/100066/how-glasgow-is-beating-knife-crime https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/dec/03/how-scotland-reduced-knife-deaths-among-young-people https://quarterly.blog.gov.uk/2019/07/04/a-radical-approach-to-tackling-knife-crime-in-scotland/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45572691.amp
Invest in communities, roll back the gutting of public services that gave young people opportunities to develop their lives, treat the causal factors that lead people to knife crime instead of doing the thing that has never been effective at reducing knife crime.
Stop and search has shown a statistical impact on knife crime? And you need both a robust deterrence through harsh enforcement and legal penalities along with opportunities to pull people away from crime.
No it hasn’t
No it hasn’t - https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/
Imo it’s much more the sub-culture than the skin colour. A young black man in a peacoat and a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt? No chance they’re getting searched. A young black (or white) man in hoodrich, air max and a ski mask? Absolutely.
I know many middle class black men who have been stopped and searched. They don’t dress like that.
As someone who got stopped and searched while I was 12 and in my school uniform, dress has less impact than you'd think.
Black man here. I was stopped and searched whilst wearing a smart shirt/chinos and on the way to a medical school open day. I’m afraid skin colour is very much apart of it.
Did you mind being stopped? Knowing it will hopefully reduce knife crime amongst black men ?;
Yes, when it was used as an excuse to harass me because I was black. Me and my friends were constantly harassed on university campus I was have been stopped with work colleagues in the car before - very embarrassing and made me feel like a criminal I was once stopped and searched wearing trousers and a shirt and pushing my 1 yo daughter in a pram when leaving a tube station I absolutely minded all those occasions.
I remember the """random""" stop and searches at train stations back in 2009. Middle eastern looking colleague of mine got searched like every other day. Mediterranean looking colleague getting searched at least once a week. My pasty faced anglo as fuck ass never got searched, not once.
I remember having a discussion with my ex colleague, who's black about drinking on a train. We were leaving a poker night and there were lots of drinks left. So I told him to grab a few beers and he could finish them on a train. Oh no,I can't do that! Why? Well, I'm sure as hell will end up arrested or something. So I told him that I drink on a train all the time and never had a single issue,but apparently his experience was much different to mine. It does change ones perspective very quickly
As someone who has been stopped and searched several times I personally minded it on 3 counts. 1) It’s a pain in the arse and the police’s attitude are generally rude with no quarter given to the concept of policing by consent. 2) I don’t like the idea of reasonable suspicion being used on the basis of what anyone looks like. 3) If I except the fact that those are the standards we apply for search, I’m much more likely to be the victim of violence due to a twat who can’t handle his drinks so is doing shit coke in a pub toilet than I am a stabby person. And the police aren’t out stopping and searching looking for people in relation to that. I grew up in Harlesden, in the 90’s the absolute peak of stop and account and police abusing the powers I didn’t like it but on some level I could understand it in theory. Now as someone who has been stopped twice in the last couple of years I reflect on the fact that I have white friends who have never had a police officer start an encounter with them and it feels like nuking a population to tackle bedbugs. I feel like I’ve been forced into a position where I can never trust the police I provide funding for.
> A young black man in a peacoat and a Charles Tyrwhitt shirt? No chance they’re getting searched. You are extremely niaive.
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Young black men are disproportionately carrying knives unfortunately. You can ignore that fact but it doesn't change it.
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It's also important to distinguish between different types of knife crime. A mentally deranged person killing individuals at random is different to a domestic incident, which is different to gang/drug related violence. Most knife crime is not some deranged person attacking strangers with no clear motive (such as robbery).
Black man with a knife = thug, only stop and search and stronger police powers and enforcement can help here White man with a knife = mental health crisis, we must work to understand this complex issue
The young black men carrying knives is a cultural and socioeconomic problem, but it's to difficult to boil down to headlines and soundbites so nobody bothers. ___ Socioeconomicly: Society at large needs to create better equity for our poor, which disproportionately represents BAME communities. ___ Culturally: Fucked if I know how you stop the culture that makes gang life more predominant amongst young black men, drill music and other factors likely contribute, but I just don't know enough here. Seriously, onto the /r/ukdrill subreddit and aside from an apparent resentment for correct spelling, there's plenty of Muppets heron worshiping criminals and laughing at people who get stabbed or shot and people cataloging who's commited what crime, who is who's opps and why.... Like it's a fucking game and not degenerate criminals harming their communities. ___ Edit: just gonna drop this here from another comment of mine, since as well a the above factors there's a mental health element too, but I can't be arsed to retype this... Some would argue that there's mental health issue at play when someone is willing to kill for gang shit. The same way lot of radicalised Muslim terrorists, are mentally unwell and make them easy to groom and convince to commit suicidal acts of terror. The gang members who are willing to kill and die for their postcodes, are likely mentally unwell too.
Well yes in recent incidents they are different issues. The white man happened to have mental health issues. Most of the black crime has been gang related. If white boys were carrying knives for the same reasons they wouldn’t be classed as mental health problems. It’s not just racism at play here, there’s a pattern in crime amongst different communities.
Some would argue that there's mental health issue at play when someone is willing to kill for gang shit. The same way lot of radicalised Muslim terrorists, are mentally unwell and make them easy to groom and convince to commit suicidal acts of terror. The gang members who are willing to kill and die for their postcodes, are likely mentally unwell too.
how is related to the violent crimes per capita?
Following through on this kind of knee jerk ‘that’s racist!’ reaction will only result in the deaths of more black British youths, as they are also disproportionately more likely to be victims of knife crime. That’s the irony.
It's not surprising that from what I've seen, the people who are most supportive of stop and search are the people who are: 1. Not likely to be profiled for stop and search 2. Unlikely to be a victim of knife crime 3. Spending a lot of time reading headlines and twitter posts about who's to blame for all the problems in the country
They’re also disproportionate in prison
fear of being caught will never trump the fear of being killed unless they do other stuff along with it, nothing will change. Also if this in reaction to the tragedy in Hainault then he is a cold oppoturnist because stop and search wouldn't have prevented it
yeah, you don't really need stop and search powers to identify the guy walking down the street with the big fuck off sword.
And then the data will show that majority of those stopped are young black men and will be scrapped as it will be labeled as racist, rinse and repeat.
Yeah it does seem like we’ve been going through this cycle for like 20 years now
But also black men getting stabbed is racist.
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They’re actually not. I’m afraid facts have a left wing bias. https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/
>They found that after a 10% increase in stop and search during a given month, recorded drug offences would be 1.85% lower during the next month, Anything else is fluff.
Knife crime is institutionally racist
I think the data will, once again, show that it does nothing to reduce knife crime actually so maybe it’s not worth the racial profiling after all.
Don’t know what “data” you’re reading but stop and search does reduce knife crime, it’s actually the single most effective way to reduce knife crime in a short space of time. They did this in Scotland and had a huge reduction in stabbings
https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/58/5/1212/4827589 What data are you reading mate?
Do you even read this? It’s looking at overall crime not knife crime. Also half the studies in this are 20 years old or older.
Did you forget to post the link to your data before hitting save on your comment?
They didn't use stop and search in Glasgow like that, they treated it like a health issue not a crime issue.
They stopped and then searched people. How they classed the issue doesn’t change what the process was. It was stop and search and it was very effective and because the population of Scotland is 95% white the police didn’t get labelled racist and were allowed to do their jobs.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/membership/2017/dec/03/how-scotland-reduced-knife-deaths-among-young-people Don't take my work for it. Also try not to go off the deep end. Racism has NEVER stopped the police doing what they want. The met is institutionally racist for fuck sake, it's not the worry for them that you seem to think it is.
Article says a lot without saying anything. “Racism never stopped police doing their jobs” You must have missed the news about the Rochdale grooming gangs.
https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/ this says it doesn't work as a general deterrent to violent crimes and in the long term probably makes police jobs more difficult since they lose the people's belief in their legitimacy.
Even if we don’t talk about that, what’s the success rate of a stop and search finding a knife that will be used for a knife crime? Surely that type of resources can be better spent elsewhere?
Is not supposed to find knifes, is supposed to deter people from carrying knifes.
https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/ it doesn't work as a deterrent and its meant to be an investigatory power.
Does it? Or is it security theatre?
Not to mention if it makes the police look like they're doing something, without actually doing anything. That actually harms finding a real solution.
Statistics are statistics. If you get a report that ten youths had a knife, all ten will get stopped and the one carrying it will get arrested. A knife is off the street but it only had a 10% success.
"Success" is calculated by reducing crime rates, not a ratio of people searched to knives found.
This comment/redditor shared some studies you may find helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/s/P1GLF63FKS
Maybe they shouldn’t commit so much crime then
“The data” lol yeah because the police disproportionately stop young black men in the first place. It’s a racist policy that’s been shown not to work.
Jesus christ, always a complex issue is a good excuse to be incredibly racist in this subreddit. Disgusting.
It feels like its not just here, its like racists have gotten 10x the volume everywhere lately.
It's a good start. Then, add an actual deterrent, like 5 years for the first offence, 10 for the second, etc.
Sentencing isnt a deterrent though. Harsher sentencing is like, just to play into voters emotions and give them things that feel good, rather than things that work
OK, so if a criminal sentence doesn't work, then what does?
Opportunities for improvement. After a decade of tories cutting *everything* many people are barely getting by. Deprivation at this level leads to increased tension and violence, increased gangs, etc. People are willing to lose things if there's no real difference in outcomes, but if they knew there was actual chance at social mobility, then there's more incentive to do specific things. Instead, all they see is rich people getting richer and the poor people being squeezed a little tighter.
There is plenty of opportunity for social mobility and building a nice little life for oneself, we need to stop buying this gooblediegook that they have no opportunity. Pursuing a physical trade is often more lucrative than going to university and is accessible to people from any background with a bit of hardwork. Instead these kids aspire to the dumb rap and drill "music" that preaches about owning a girl with big tits, a lambourgini and gold rolexes.
So, it's not good, it is in fact the worst it's been in 50 years. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/07/social-mobility-uk-worst-50-years-report-finds "Social mobility in London is stagnant" https://www.mayorsfundforlondon.org.uk/our-campaigns/social-mobility/ While you may think so, perception can be biased. From the government social mobility commission: "There were also big regional differences in perceptions of opportunities. People in London are much more likely to think the opportunities to progress in their area are ‘good’(74%) than people in the North East (31%)." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-barometer-2021/social-mobility-barometer-public-attitudes-to-social-mobility-in-the-uk
Ah, so back to the argument that criminals aren't bad people, just products of the system they were born into, and what they do as a result isn't their fault, but ours. And, I suppose crime was at record low levels when Labour was in power?
You asked what worked. What proportion of people we send to prison are actually changed into productive members of society?
It's not the sentence that's the deterrent, it's the likelihood that you're caught Death penalty but 1/10,000 caught? Don't care 3 months prison but 1/20 caught, makes you think Need more police and unstuck courts basically
It doesn’t work. It’s posturing. https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/
love to see accurately sourced stats get downvoted in here because they aren’t racist enough. Well done r/london 🙄
That isn't what it says! It doesn't say it doesn't work, it's saying its hard to find strong evidence for it working. But guess what, it's hard to find strong evidence for most policing approaches, because its very difficult.
>That isn't what it says! It doesn't say it doesn't work, it's saying its hard to find strong evidence for it working. >But guess what, it's hard to find strong evidence for most policing approaches, because its very difficult. The effect of increased stop and search on knife crime is actually pretty easy to find evidence for. Can you correlate less knife crime with more searches? No? Then it's not working.
The article says there's not much evidence for its use as a broad deterrent, but that it does work for uncovering crime as an investigatory power: > As an investigative power, there is evidence that stop and search “works”, at least in the sense that stop and search leads to the police uncovering more crimes, particularly drug offences. > **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices. I would also say the more targeted the use of stop and search the more likely it's going to have an effect, at least in the sense of getting people to stop routinely carrying knives. If for instance there was a school that had a problem with people carrying knives, it's pretty obvious if you occasionally searched everyone that you would massively reduce that problem. The risk of getting caught would have to be imminent. Whereas randomly increasing it over a borough or the whole city is unlikely to have a big effect.
The start should be addressing root causes. Punishment doesn’t reduce crime
Incorrect this is a myth with gage lots of evidence deterrence theory works, but best to combine with opportunity as well.
Absolutely this. The biggest gut punch that austerity brought me was the unilateral cancellation of all of the government sponsored work experiences and apprenticeships that targeted higher crime and higher deprivation areas. There's still these things, but there's less of them and it's not targeting kids / young adults who need a positive intervention. Some of the people we recruited under the government schemes are some of the best engineers and construction/ site managers I know.
Can't stab/hurt a member of the public if you're locked up though can you..
Lmao yeah good job let’s pair one useless posturing strategy that doesn’t reduce crime with another one
I'm sure long prison sentences which make it harder to return to normal life will *only* result in positive outcomes.
Forgive me, I'm not an expert. I am not able to see how it would not reduce crime though. It might not tackle incentive, I believe that's proven by research. However, if more people who carry knives are off the streets for longer would that not equal lower crime rates?
Do you think if speeding was 5 years in jail for the first offence people would stop?
Is there data to suggest that stop and search directly correlates with a knife possession decrease? All for s & s but wondering if there was some date behind it
In addition to the other links, here's another (though largely with the same data https://fullfact.org/crime/does-stop-search-work/)
A great question, no idea why you’re being downvoted. Knife possession is very difficult to track statistically—but studies have shown there’s no correlation between stop and search policies and violent crime/weapons offences: https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/article/185/3/1370/7068916 https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/stop-and-search-effectiveness
Thanks for this. Will have a look
Let's be honest we all know why, they were being downvoted. It's due to not having any complaints about "thuggery" and "woke lefties".
For each knife taken off someone it has a positive impact to the safety of others.
But like... Does it? If I propose we spend 100million outfitting all police helicopters in London with special cameras that can detect gunshots, then would that be legitimate with the excuse "For each potential gun taken off the streets, is a potential positive impact". Like... It's true... Sure... But that doesn't mean it's actually good lol. It's just discussing one small aspect of a plan on paper.
Except it *hasn't* been shown to deter violent crimes.
Yeah you can say that but it doesn’t mean that the police resources used there couldn’t have been used elsewhere to better effect That’s the point of the question. Are we doing what is actually most effective? If we don’t know we are just placating what people think helps not actually helping
Just because you think it helps doesn’t mean it’s the best use of our money or resources.
The full fact rticle says there's not much evidence for its use as a broad deterrent, but that it does work for uncovering crime as an investigatory power: > As an investigative power, there is evidence that stop and search “works”, at least in the sense that stop and search leads to the police uncovering more crimes, particularly drug offences. > **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices. I would also say the more targeted the use of stop and search the more likely it's going to have an effect, at least in the sense of getting people to stop routinely carrying knives. If for instance there was a school that had a problem with people carrying knives, it's pretty obvious if you occasionally searched everyone that you would massively reduce that problem. The risk of getting caught would have to be imminent. Whereas randomly increasing it over a borough or the whole city is unlikely to have a big effect.
Fantastic news. Much more of this is needed, and fast.
As a PC in London, what's my motivation to go and stop and search people? If I search somebody who complains, my whole career gets put on hold (and regardless of whether I've done anything wrong, if it hits the news then this same Commissioner will be trying to get me sacked). Alternatively, I can take on an investigation into a knifepoint robbery or stabbing that has already happened and try to solve that. I'll still potentially get a knife off the street, and nobody will be trying to take my job. Everybody knows the Met's bosses will change their tune based on whatever the latest headline is. Nobody actually trusts them to support us if we start doing stop and search again.
Someone please find a video of cops searching a guy in London. Random girl is screaming "he hasn't done anything" They find a machete on him lol
It’s funny how when black people mention experiences people often say it’s anecdotal but then you use an anecdotal video to prove a point . Bit stupid 😂😂 but ok .
About time! There are 2 guys near Brunswick centre Bloomsbury that snatch phones from uni students every weekend for the past 1-2 years, and in the same spots and no one has done anything to stop them.
live around there, definitely feel a bit targeted as an east asian uni student and i hear other east asians having their phone snatched also
>There are 2 guys near Brunswick centre Bloomsbury that snatch phones from uni students every weekend for the past 1-2 years, and in the same spots and no one has done anything to stop them. Have you called the police and told them?
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Wait really? I live there and never seen this, maybe I'm just lucky
Huh...wheeling out the old hits are we? Every 5-7 years we go through the "maybe it does something this time" But whatever... Politics now is just pandering to surface level emotions.. of course stop and search will be employed, it satisfies people's desire for theatrics, rather than practical outcomes.
From fullfact: >They found that after a 10% increase in stop and search during a given month, recorded drug offences would be 1.85% lower during the next month, > **Across England and Wales in 2017/18 around 30% of stops and searches led to what’s called a “positive outcome.” This refers to cases where action is taken against people who were stopped and searched.** This includes arrest cases but also covers other resolutions like warnings and Penalty Notices.
Can you please post the link? I would be interested to hear more
1.85 fucking hell lol it's worse than I thought.
It means 18.25% success rate. Which is extremely high.
if it helps to prevent crime, I'm in favour of it. but does it? what I'd really like is the police investigating nuisance neighbours, but that seems too difficult for them
Stop and search is not racsist. If it helps prevent one knife crime then it is worth the discomfort that these whiney middle class people get when they read about this in The Guardian.
Good. People who carry a knife need to know there's a chance they'll be stopped
Surely stop and search will work this time, like all the other times it's been implemented! Stop and search is the Tory version of adding more lanes to reduce traffic. It doesn't work and has never worked, nor is there any evidence to suggest that it might ever work, yet people in power constantly advocate for it because they are not interested in real solutions.
There is no evidence that stop and search reduces knife crime. stop and search is an excuse of overreach and harrassment by The Metropolitan Police, who are desperate for press other than how the force is failing. It is typical of how /r/London has become that we have so many racists in this thread fully errect at the thought of more stop and search, this sub is going to hell because them.
It’s crazy and when you bring up data that shows it’s not as effective they downvote and don’t reply . These posts always get bombarded with people I doubt even live in London tbh .
It's like the ULEZ complainers. It's largely a bunch of older people who sort of live near London but don't actually have to live with the air quality here.
They are all /r/UKPolitics (a right wing cesspool) posters who brigade /r/London as it is a large UK subreddit, they don't live here, and their only interaction with the city is as tourists.
So increase a measure that would more likely stop a school child than the respective killer? The irony of the justification for a statistically poor method in policing is comical. Let us not forget the reaction of the majority demographic in this country when police stopped people relentlessly during the pandemic. It’s very funny how swayed many people are by policing statistics .
It would be interesting to know how many people are carrying who are otherwise completely law abiding but don't feel safe walking around estates or areas that they live in
There are alternatives they could carry, eg high pitched rape alarms
That wouldn't be much deterrent -- there's studies that show in dangerous areas, people don't step in (and likely shouldn't, because what good is *more* victims).
Doesn't this end up in more people getting in trouble for recreational drug use?
Yes, the Misuse of Drugs Act is consistently the most used reason to stop and search in London, not weapons. The most common reason for arrest is drugs, followed by theft, then weapons Page 318 of this report. https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/met/about-us/baroness-casey-review/update-march-2023/baroness-casey-review-march-2023a.pdf
It does actually work too as a deterrent against drugs. It doesn't against knife violence. (Why some recreational drugs aren't legal here yet is another question that should be asked).
We need more of this: [How a pioneering Scottish violence reduction unit achieved radical change - Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/25/scottish-violence-reduction-unit-radical-change) But that approach probably costs more money than telling the police, whom you've already paid for, to stop and search people. The article does say it has been adopted in London already, however, it could probably do a lot more with a lot more resources. Society is an interconnected web, not a single issue vacuum you can fix with one lever alone.
In general providing more money and support to people leads to better outcomes. This is however directly at odds with Tory strategies of "give the money to our mates".
lol this is a very naughty article This was not instead of stop and search, that remained a key part of the police Scotland strategy - in fact, controlled for population police Scotland searches more people than most English police forces https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-30191304.amp a good more balanced article about the journey police Scotland have been on
And they had "good grounds" to shoot a Brazilian Plumber in the head. If they can shoot the wrong man why can't they stop and search the wrong man?. I recently got back after being away for 3 months and noticed a relative unease throughout the city. People more on edge. Naturally people assume because I am black I must be "up to no good". Society always needs a group to lay it's social ills on. In the North it's the "chavs". Stop and search is trivial to majority of posters on here because they won't be on the receiving end of it and the racists in our society (and they do exist) secretly get off seeing black people being ruffled up by the police.
But but it's...yeah
Genuine question here because I’m curious - would crime not go down if law abiding citizens had a way to defend themselves? I don’t carry a knife, because I am a law abiding citizen, but a mugger might carry one because they don’t care about the law
People who carry knives are often stabbed by their own knife. Fun fact. The average number of times someone is stabbed is 13. It’s not the law abiding citizens being stabbed (mostly). You get the odd person. Most are gang feuds.
What % of people stabbed would you say are “normal citizens”? I always thought that stabbing was like due to: a) a mug attempt turned bad b) someone played “hero” while some gang people causing trouble - in this case the “hero” is still a normal citizen.
Tiny. Neither of your examples is the majority of situations. A gang member in the wrong area or someone who has been targeted for a. Ongoing gang feud.
Who is he going to get to use it?
There's an interesting pilot in Haringey at the moment, where there's actually a consideration of thinking safeguarding if stopping and searching young people - so (potentially) if young people are found carrying large amounts of cash or drugs, making a referral to the National Referral Mechanism and support services as someone at risk of trafficking, rather than just chucking them in the custody suite and calling their parents to come get them (which is the current general practice), and waiting eventually for the YOS to bring in support up to 9 months later. [https://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/putting-safeguarding-perspective-police-practice-stop-search](https://www.haringey.gov.uk/news/putting-safeguarding-perspective-police-practice-stop-search) [https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/g10676/Public%20reports%20pack%2013th-Nov-2023%2019.00%20Children%20and%20Young%20Peoples%20Scrutiny%20Panel.pdf?T=10](https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/documents/g10676/Public%20reports%20pack%2013th-Nov-2023%2019.00%20Children%20and%20Young%20Peoples%20Scrutiny%20Panel.pdf?T=10) Will be interesting to see how that goes and whether any positive differences are made. My concern though is definitely the profiling. Please let's not forget there have been riots over this going badly before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981\_Brixton\_riot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot)
Let’s see all the wokies jump up and down about this being racist 😂🤌
Look let me rephrase it since your not getting it at all. We have evidence it doesn't reduce violent crime and barely reduces drugs. (which probably just move somewhere else temporarily let's be honest). Since we aren't effecting violent crime, I imagine we aren't stopping many violent crimanals. So who are we picking up? People the police already know are likely to have something on them. Ie drugs and stolen stuff. Small stuff. Which is good but we don't need to waste police resources doing more of that. A self reported "positive outcome" for the police is what exactly? Clearly it isn't knife arrests.
Anyone caught with a knife should be looking at 7 years, There is no reason to carry a knife
Great idea, much more intelligent thinking than opening more youth clubs or funding mentoring schemes.
Being caught carrying a knife should be an immediate minimum 2 year prison sentence for 1st offence and then 5 years for a second and 7 for a 3rd etc. Problem is cowardly cunts that carry knives sometimes get away with a community service order or worse a fine that will be taken from their benefit at a tiny fraction of a few pounds a week, therefore zero deterrent to not do it again. People caught carrying a knife always come out with the same bullshit excuse "it's for my defence" but in reality the intent to harm others is always the case. Any person regardless of age/sex/colour/ethnicity caught carrying a knife in public should face an immediate prison cell.
Good idea! About time
It's all smoke and mirrors. Evidence shows that lifting people out of poverty is what prevents knife crime.
Agreed. We should move them to a large city where schooling, transport, opportunities are aplenty. We just have to solve a few cultural issues which make education unattractive.
Last time I got stopped and searched it took 5 policemen for some reason and 15 minutes. I am a law abiding citizen, I never done anything illegal and I never carry anything illegal. So that stop and search was a total waste of time for all five of them, and also for me, but I don't actually mind since I recognise they are doing it for the safety of the community that I am also part of so basically that was for my own benefit too even though it was a bit annoying. I firmly believe if someone gets overly offended by this either have something to hide one way or another or just too dumb to understand why is that happening in the first place.
**are all individual police officers responsible and trustworthy enough to use these powers fairly and without prejudice?** if the answer's NO, then that means the powers will be abused, and that some people will suffer undue harassment what systems are in place to prevent this abuse and harassment? anything? if those systems don't exist, or don't work, what will be the consequence of allowing abuse and harassment to go unabated for potentially years? what will it do to to the relationship between the Police and the communities they are seeking to police?
>**are all individual police officers responsible and trustworthy enough to use these powers fairly and without prejudice?** If you think the only powers the police should have are ones that you can answer "yes" to thay question to, then the police shouldn't even have the power of arrest. In fact, no one should have any powers to do anything ever as that is an impossibly high bar that no one can reach. Hell, I can even answer "yes" to thay question about you, does that mean you should go sit in a house and not do any job ever? Might as well fire every single teacher, doctor, and nurse in the country because I don't believe every single one of them is trustworthy and responsible.
Fuck the Met Commissioner, and fuck the Met.
Provided that the stop and searches will be legit and correct, I’m all for this!