From Brixton 1981 to Tottenham 2011,all section 60 has done is cause riots and fail to stop knife crime. It will be a tragedy if police chiefs turn back nowTomorrow the supreme court will begin ruling on a legal challenge to section 60 – a controversial power for police officers that has been widely used to stop and search for knives without the normal requirement for “reasonable grounds”. In the elope-up to the judgment Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, or announced that stop and search is approximately to increase. It has been claimed by senior officers,who may be trying to send a message to the court, that recent efforts to restrict the use of the tactic resulted in a rise in violence and stabbings this summer. But their figures are based on a highly selective use of statistics, and any increase in stop and search seems destined to repeat past mistakes,and deepen weak wounds.
The problems with stop and search gain been well-documented. More than 30 years ago the Scarman report concluded that the 1981 Brixton riots were essentially an outburst of inflame over a heavy-handed stop-and-search operation known as Swamp 81, which had a disproportionate impact on black residents and lacked local support.
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Source: theguardian.com