Use of stop and search

There will be a Westminster Hall debate on the use of stop and search on 12 March 2025. The debate will be opened by Saqib Bhatti MP.

The Library briefing Police powers: stop and search provides more detailed background information about stop and search powers.

What are stop and search powers?

Police officers can stop and search people who they suspect may be carrying certain items, such as drugs or weapons. They can do this to ‘allay or confirm’ their suspicions, and without making an arrest.

Police officers must use a specific legislative power every time they carry out a stop and search. They must be able to demonstrate they used the correct power for the circumstances of each search.

In short, there are three main forms of stop and search powers that police officers can use:

1. reasonable ground searches
2. searches in a specified locality without reasonable grounds
3. searches of specified people without reasonable grounds

1. Reasonable grounds searches

The vast majority of stop and searches are conducted using ‘reasonable grounds’ powers. There are numerous statutory provisions which give police officers the power to do so. The most used are:

• Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), which allows police officers to search anyone who they have reasonable grounds to suspect possesses a knife or offensive weapon, or a range of other articles related to specified offences, such as theft, burglary, or public order offences.
• Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which allows police officers to search anyone if they have a ‘reasonable suspicion’ they are in possession of ‘controlled drugs’. Controlled drugs are those that are illegal to produce, supply or possess under the 1971 act.

In the year to March 2024, 99% of all searches were conducted using these powers.

Officers have reasonable grounds when they have a ‘genuine suspicion’ that they will find the object they are searching for. This suspicion must be based on ‘objective factors’. There is no definitive list of ‘objective factors’ on which to base a search.

2. Searches in a specified locality without reasonable grounds

Under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, police officers can be authorised to search people in a specified locality when senior officers ‘reasonably believe’ that one of the following conditions have been met:

• incidents involving serious violence ‘may’ take place in a locality,
• an incident involving serious violence has taken place and the weapon used is in a locality, or
• people are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons in a locality.

If an above condition is met, a police inspector can authorise uniformed officers to stop and search anyone within a specified area for up to 48 hours. They do not need reasonable grounds to suspect that they will find a particular object.

Section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023 also allows police inspectors to pre-authorise uniformed officers to stop and search any individual in a designated area if they ‘reasonably believe’ that specified protest-related offences may be committed within that area. These work in a similar way to section 60 powers.

In the year to March 2024, there were 5,145 searches conducted under section 60 powers, less than 1% of all searches.

The power to search without reasonable suspicion is a highly controversial power. In May 2021, the Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA), a voluntary organisation, submitted a super-complaint against section 60 searches.

The police super-complaints system allows designated organisations to raise concerns about a feature or issue in policing that is harming the interests of the public. The CJA raised concerns over the disproportionate impact on Black people, the low arrest rates and the lack of transparency over the way the power is used.

The super-complaint was jointly investigated by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), the College of Policing and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The investigation report, published in December 2023, found that:

• none of the police forces that the investigators engaged with could explain why the use of section 60 resulted in disproportionality
• police forces did not take the effects of disproportionality ‘seriously enough’
• forces ‘aren’t paying enough regard to the detailed legal requirements’ for the use of section 60

It made ten recommendations, addressed largely to chief constables to improve how stop and search powers are used.

3. Searches of specified people without reasonable grounds

Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) are civil orders that allow for an individual to be stopped and searched by the police without the need for reasonable grounds of suspicion. SVROs were introduced under sections 165 to 166 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

SVROs can be issued by a court to people aged 18 and over who have been convicted of a crime where either a bladed article or offensive weapon has been used, or it is thought that the individual had one in their possession at the time of the offence (regardless of whether it was used).

SVROs can also be imposed in cases where an individual was not in possession of a bladed article or offensive weapon at the time of an offence, but ‘knew or ought to have known’ that another person who committed the offence either used a weapon or had one in their possession.

SVROs can be imposed for between six months and two years. It is a criminal offence to breach the terms of an SVRO, with a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

SVROs can only be used in police force areas in England and Wales once a pilot has been carried out and the government has reported the results to Parliament. In April 2023, pilots commenced in Merseyside, Thames Valley, Sussex and West Midlands police force areas. The pilots are expected to be completed by April 2025.

Although SVROs can only be applied for, and issued, in pilot areas, officers from any police force in England and Wales can exercise the associated stop and search powers granted by an SVRO, and breach of an SVRO can be committed and prosecuted anywhere in England and Wales.

The Home Office has issued statutory guidance to support prosecutors and police in using SVROs in pilot areas.

How often do the police use their powers?

According to the government’s stop and search statistics, in the year ending March 2024:

• There were 535,307 stop and searches in England and Wales, a decrease of 11,693 compared with the year ending March 2023.
• Of the 535,307 searches, 75,953 led to an arrest. The proportion of searches resulting in an arrest increased slightly, from 13.6% in 2022/23 to 14.2% in 2023/24.
• 61% of stop and searches were of males aged between 10 and 34. There were 103,235 stop and searches conducted on children under 18.
• A quarter of all stop and searches in England and Wales were carried out by the Metropolitan Police. Merseyside Police had the highest stop and search rate (34.6 for every 1,000 people).

How should the police use their powers?

Police officers should adhere to the following guidance when carrying out stop and searches:

• PACE Code A, statutory guidance maintained by the Home Office (last updated 2023).
• The College of Policing (the body responsible for professional standards in policing) Authorised Professional Practice on stop and search (last updated 2017)

What impact does stop and search have on Black people?

People identifying as Black or Black British were searched at a rate 3.7 times higher than those from a White ethnic group across England and Wales in the year to March 2024.

People have long raised concerns about the impact of the disproportionate use of stop and search, particularly on Black people. For example, the police use of ‘sus laws’ (stop and search-like powers in the Vagrancy Act 1824, repealed in 1981) against Black people was considered a contributing factor to the Brixton riots/ uprising of 1981. In 1999, the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence (PDF) found that that disparities in stop and search rates by ethnicity demonstrated “racist stereotyping” by the police.

In April 2022, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) published a national stop and search learning report. The report raised several concerns about the way police conducted stop and searches on Black people, including conducting searches on weak grounds and using excessive force. It highlighted how such encounters can cause fear, humiliation, distress and trauma. The report made several recommendations to police forces and policing bodies. The IOPC published a report in October 2023 providing an update on actions against its recommendations.

Research conducted by the criminal justice consultancy Crest Advisory in 2022 found that 45% of adults who had been stopped and searched found the experience traumatising, rising to 52% of Black adults.

Baroness Casey’s review into standards of behaviour and the internal culture within the Metropolitan Police (the Met) was published in March 2023. It found that the Met had not explored how the “humiliating and traumatic” impact of stop and searches impacted trust and confidence of Londoners, especially young Black men, and found that the Met could not “explain clearly enough” why it used stop and search on the scale that it did.

What is the impact of stop and search on crime?

There is little evidence to suggest that stop and search has an impact on reducing crime.

A widely cited study published in the British Journal of Criminology in 2018 analysed London data from 2004 to 2014. This study concluded that the effect of stop and search on crime is “likely to be marginal, at best”. The research found “some association between stop and search and crime (particularly drug crime)” but concluded that the use of the powers “has relatively little deterrent effect”.

The Youth Endowment Fund, which funds and evaluates interventions addressing serious violence, has published a summary on the available international evidence. It said that the evidence shows that stop and search has a low impact on crime in the UK:

The evidence provides a mixed picture about the impacts of stop and search. On average, the global evidence shows a moderate impact on crime. However, studies in the UK show a low impact on crime. In addition, the research shows an association between people that are stopped and searched, and poorer mental and physical health, and more negative attitudes towards the police.

How are the police trying to improve stop and search?

In February 2025, the Met published a new Stop and Search Charter, setting out its commitments on how stop and search should be carried out in London. The charter was recommended by Baroness Casey in her 2023 review.

The charter includes commitments to ensure that officers conduct stop and search with professionalism, and that the force works with local communities to regularly discuss when and where stop and search is being used and to listen to concerns. The Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that the charter would improve stop and search:

The charter is not about doing less stop and search. It is about doing it better by improving the quality of encounters, informed by the views of the public it is intended to protect.

Londoners will rightly judge this charter by its results, and I will continue to monitor its delivery to ensure it is both effective and fair so that we can build a safer and fairer London for everyone.

When asked whether he thought the charter would achieve its aims, the chief executive of the charity Rights and Equalities in Newham, Paul Leslie, said:

I think it's a tall order, we are dealing with a range of cultural and embedded behaviours that I think will take some time to unpick, but my starting point is one of optimism.

Campaign group StopWatch described the charter as “repetitive, vague, meaningless, and unenforceable”.