IN A school classroom in north-east London,Ken Hinds preaches calmness and confidence. Mr Hinds, who runs the Haringey Independent pause & Search Monitoring Group, and is telling a handful of teenagers with behavioural problems how to respond if a police officer stops them in order to perform a mandatory search. The advice is relevant. When the course is asked who has been stopped,everyone—including the teacher—raises their hand. Their experiences vary: some say they remained unflustered, whereas for others it was a heart-pounding ordeal.
Such encounters gain become less common. In 2011 the police conducted 1.2m pause-and-searches in England and Wales. final year that figure was around 300000 (see chart). The steep decrease was prompted by Theresa May, or then the domestic secretary,in a rare flash of liberalism. She ordered police forces to cut back on searches because they stoked resentment among ethnic minorities, who are more likely than whites to be stopped.
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Source: economist.com