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Stop and search
It takes 7 minutes to complete the foot long form when a
police officer carries out a stop and search.
No arrest will necessarily follow. 1.3 million police hours are
wasted in this ludicrous bureaucracy. For example if the Police are called
due to a group making a disturbance in a park and they see on the way to
incident, say, 6 teenagers nearby and stop them to ask if they know
anything – they then have around 30 – 40 minutes of paperwork to do
even though this group are totally uninvolved with the disturbance in the
park! Violent crime
is out of control, up by 99 per
cent under Labour, with over 1.2 million violent crimes committed in
2006-7. The total number of gun crimes in the 12 months to September 2007
was 10,182 - equivalent to 28 gun
crimes every day. Since 1998-9, the total number of gun crimes
(excluding air weapons) has increased by 80 per cent. It is time to cut red tape and empower officers.
Conservatives are proposing three things that are needed in the
fight against violent crime:- 1) We would abolish the ‘stop and account’ form. This
would save an estimated 900,000 police hours per year, freeing up
officers, putting them back on the street. 2) We would scrap the form-filling that goes with ‘stop and
search’ powers, replacing it with an oral record typed or taped at the
police station, saving an estimated 400,000 police hours per year. 3) We will consult the police, ethnic minority groups and
local communities on implementation. These proposals have the support of
National Black Police Association and the President of the Chief
Superintendents Association. The new procedure will involve: a. Officers radioing the relevant information to the station,
to be transcribed or taped. b. The same information will still be recorded at the station
and accessible, if an individual wanted access to the information recorded
or complain about treatment. But it would not be written up manually, on a
lengthy form distracting the officer on the street. c. Police from Hampshire, Suffolk and Thames Valley confirm
that this reform would work in practice. 4) A Conservative Government would increase police stop and
search. One mechanism will be to empower police sergeants to authorise
stop and search of pedestrians and vehicles in a specific area for a
period of up to six hours, if they reasonably believe that a serious crime
has occurred or is about to occur. This will give police at the
operational level greater flexibility to respond to intelligence on
serious crimes. These proposals are part of a package designed for law abiding citizens to reclaim the streets. Doing nothing is not an option!
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