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ECHRC has discovered that section 60 stops were most likely to be used to stop black and ethnic minorities (13 June 2012)

Date: 13/06/2012
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, ECHRC has discovered that section 60 stops were most likely to be used to stop black and ethnic minorities

Human rights group The Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECHRC), investigated the section 60 stops where officers detain people as a routine check without any specific suspicion of any crime.
It discovered that while overall use of the power had fallen ethnic minorities were still being harassed by the force.
Most of the section 60 stops were being conducted by the Metropolitan police a total of 258,000 between 2008 and 2011.
The next highest was done by the Merseyside Police where officers conducted 40,940 Section 60s in the same time period. Some forces barely used the power at all.
According to the EHRC, between 2008 and 2009, Met officers stopped 68 of every 1,000 black people in their area.
Although this fell by more than half between 2010 and 2011 to 32.8 per 1,000, in the rest of England the figure was just 1.2 per 1,000.
However the highest rates of racial inequality were seen outside London with an officer in the West Midlands 28 times more likely to search a black person than a white person.
Overall black people were found to be 37 times more likely to be stopped under Section 60 that white people. Asian people were 10 times more likely to be stopped.
The effectiveness of the searches has also been called in to question as it was revealed that between 2008 and 2009 only 2.8 per cent of Section 60 searches resulted in an arrest falling to just 2.4 per cent between 2010 and 2011.
Though suspicion of any crime might not be the criteria for making searches still the police officers in most cases are required to have what was referred to as 'reasonable suspicion' that someone was involved in a crime before conducting a search.
However the Section 60 power, which is part of the 1994 Public Order Act introduced as a response to the rise in illegal raves, empowers an officer to stop and search a person simply on the apprehension of violence or disorder.
A spokesman for EHRC told the Guardian newspaper that black youths were still being targeted and were never given a clear explanation as to why, many in the community would see this as racial profiling.
Police data itself questions the effectiveness of this practice as some forces arrested an individual over a weapon after almost using 200 or 300 stops. A spokesman for the Met defended its use of Section 60 searches saying that these powers were critical in its efforts to tackle knife, gun and gang crimes.

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