The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) has submitted a response to the College of Policing’s consultation on updated authorised professional practice (APP) guidance for stop and search. The CJA’s 2021 super-complaint on Section 60 powers directly contributed to the HMICFRS investigation that prompted these revisions. Our response focuses on ensuring that forces are held accountable for improving standards of practice through the APP. Our recommendations include:
- Police and Crime Commissioners – supported by Community Scrutiny Panels – to be held responsible for monitoring and reporting on forces’ compliance with the APP.
- A robust training curriculum to be published in alignment with the updated APP.
- Mandatory recording of self-defined and officer-perceived ethnicity, to close the persistent “unknown” ethnicity data gap that acts as a barrier to accurately identifying levels of racial disproportionality.
- Forces to publish all community scrutiny panel recommendations and their responses, including where recommendations have not been accepted.
- Inclusion of case studies from people with lived experience of stop and search, to help officers understand the real-world impact of their actions on individuals and communities.
- Clearer protections for women and children.
We remain conscious that professional guidance, however well put together, cannot resolve wider structural, legislative and cultural concerns around policing practice.