The Rise and Fall of Suspicionless Searches

• In Event: 'Good' Policing

Abstract

This paper examines the extraordinary rise and fall of the police power to stop and
search people in public places without suspicion. ‘Suspicionless searches’ rose
twentyfold in the first decade of the twentieth century and then fell almost as
dramatically. In the year 2000 the police conducted 7,000 searches under s.60 of the
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and then rose to a peak of 150,000 in
2009. Suspicionless searches conducted under s.44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 rose by
the same degree from 10,200 in 2001/2 to 210,00 in 2009. Searches under both powers
then declined radically in subsequent years – to 46,000 in the case of s.60 and to
zero in the case of s.44. This latter power was repealed in 2010 following the ECtHR
decision in Quinton and Gillan and replaced with s.47A which has not yet been used.
Drawing on contemporary police research and theoretical concerns about the
legitimacy of widely-drawn state power, this paper seeks to understand the
relationship between law and police stop and search practice. It considers changes
in the social and political context within which police powers are exercised and the
role of the legislature, judiciary and civil society organisations in holding the
police to account for the use of coercive and intrusive powers. The paper concludes
with a consideration of the current Home Office review and the implications for the
future of police powers to stop and search without reasonable suspicion

Authors

• Ben Bowling, King's College London

• Estelle Marks, Kings College London