Stop and search numbers fall

Grauniad article:

Big fall in police use of stop-and search powers after outcry

Home office figures show that only tiny proportion of anti-terror searches lead to arrests

Quote:

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There has been a sharp fall this year in the police use of counter-terror stop and search powers in the wake of a public outcry over their discriminatory nature, according to Home Office figures.

But the statistics still show that only a tiny proportion – 0.6% – of the searches carried out under anti-terror laws led to an arrest.

During 2008-09 more than 256,000 people were stopped in the street and searched by the police without the need for reasonable grounds of suspicion under section 44 of the Terrorism 2000 Act. This record level of police activity followed the failed bomb attack on a London nightclub in 2007. Only 1,452 of these searches led to an arrest or other action, and the vast majority on matters unrelated to terrorism.

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'Mission Creep' is still a big issue with regard to much of ZaNuLabour's paranoid, misguided legislation. The cynic in me is thinking that perhaps this is a small change, while the bigger issues (the laws themselves and their potential for abuse) aren't addressed. 42 days? Right to silence? Control orders? One-sided extradition to the US with few legal safeguards? I could go on...