Priti Patel to make stop and search easier for police in England

Britain's Secretary of State for the Home Department Priti Patel. (Photo: Reuters)Premium
Britain's Secretary of State for the Home Department Priti Patel. (Photo: Reuters)
 1 min read . Updated: 27 Jul 2021, 06:07 AM IST Bloomberg

Police officers will be allowed to use controversial stop-and-search powers more easily in England and Wales after the government decided to ease restrictions on them SC.

Police officers will be allowed to use controversial stop-and-search powers more easily in England and Wales after the government decided to ease restrictions on them.

The change is likely to anger campaigners who have said the rules -- which allow searches without reasonable grounds for suspicion -- unfairly target minority ethnic groups. The government says it will help to reduce knife-related crime.

Home Secretary Priti Patel will announce the decision later Tuesday as part of a wider package 1 reignite questions about race relations in Britain in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last year, which Patel has since described as “dreadful."

The policy “will compound 1 in Britain and divide communities," said Emmanuelle Andrews, Policy and Campaigns Officer at civil liberties organization Liberty. “Many communities, particularly communities of color, experience overbearing and oppressive policing and the package the government has put forward will only worsen this."

London Police Will Track Ethnicity of Drivers They Pull Over

Black and Bangladeshi people are disproportionately targeted by the police in England and Wales, according to the most recent figures published by the Home Office. The data, which covers April 2019 through March 2020, show that 54 out of every 1,000 Black people were stopped and searched in the period, compared with six in 1,000 White people.

Under the plan, the government will also:

  • trial the use of tags that detect alcohol in the sweat of offenders guilty of drink-fueled crime
  • set aside funding to increase lighting and CCTV in public places

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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