The Home Office has opened a consultation on a proposal to implement 'a new court order to target known knife and offensive weapon carriers'.
According to the Gov.uk website, Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) aim to 'crack down on violent crime' by granting the police personalised powers to 'target those already convicted of certain knife offences' by giving them the right to stop and search them 'without suspicion', any time they choose.
The consultation welcomes views on how best to implement the tools available, but the use of such punitive powers raise several fears, especially about the civil liberties of individuals who are deemed innocent, having served their sentence, and that SVROs may be used excessively on those previously caught carrying knives not as potential aggressors, but as victims.
According to its own consultation research paper, the Home Office itself is also aware of the fact that the use of SVROs, like other forms of stop and search, is 'likely to have at best a very marginal effect on emerging crime problems'.
If you share our concerns with the introduction of this new power, you can have your say on the matter by responding to the consultation, either by filling in an online form, or by emailing SVRO.consultation.responses@homeoffice.gov.uk, using our attached response template (below).
The consultation closes at 11:45pm on 8 November 2020.
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