Today (27 February), the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) published ‘A New Met for London: The Stop and Search Charter’. In the foreword to the Charter (which the Met had originally committed to delivering by October 2023), Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley offered his own thoughts on the need for the Charter and its rationale. Stop and search, Rowley asserts, is ‘a critical policing tool’ that ‘saves lives’, although he acknowledges the fact that ‘the level of support [for stop and search] varies depending on who you ask’. Rowley references the longstanding concerns of Black Londoners, who ‘have told us [the MPS] how stop and search creates tension between their communities and the police’. He also claims that the ‘apprehension’ around the use of stop and search is felt by police officers too – who, he says, lack confidence to use the tactic for fear of ‘negative community reaction and complaints’ and the resultant ‘personal impact’ of these potential outcomes on officers.
In essence, Rowley’s chief concern appears to be that if police officers do less stop and search – due in part to the reasons mentioned above – then we are letting ‘the criminals win’. If police officers ‘are to have more confidence [in using stop and search]’, Rowley writes (which is framed as an inherently desirable goal), ‘they need to know that the communities they’re operating in back them to use this power, providing of course that they use it the right way’. According to Rowley, ‘That is what this charter sets us on a path towards. […] It’s not about doing less stop and search but about doing it better’.
Given the Met’s recent history, the cynical among us (or anyone with a basic understanding of the history of stop and search in the UK) may well read Rowley’s piece and wonder whether the true aim of this new Charter is to provide the Met with justification for ramping up the use of stop and search across London – allowing them to claim, through the creation of the Stop and Search Charter, that ‘the community’ has ‘consented’ to an uptick in stop and search, so long as it is done ‘the right way’ (in Rowley’s words) and in line with the Charter’s consecrated ideals.
We’ve taken a look at the content of Charter itself, and the process by which it was put together, so you don’t have to. Spoiler: it’s repetitive, vague, at times confusingly worded, and particularly scant on detail in relation to enforcement and accountability.
What’s the purpose of the Charter and how did it come about?
Beneath the first heading, ‘Why is this needed?’, the Charter cites common concerns about the Met’s use of stop and search, especially its disproportionate use on young people and the potentially traumatic impact of being stopped and searched, as well as ‘many historical cases where policing has not lived up to the standards expected and acted in a way that has caused shock and fear in the community’. However, this is shortly followed by the slightly jarring and oddly defensive caveat that ‘the change recommended in this document is directed towards the organisation [the MPS] and not to those officers who are trying so hard to serve the community’.
Baroness Casey’s 2023 review of standards and culture at the Met is also mentioned as a reason for the creation of the Charter: indeed, the establishment of a charter was one of her 16 key recommendations, as was the point that ‘[c]ompliance with the charter should be measured independently’. It is also highlighted that ‘this Charter has been co-produced with the people of London’ through events held at New Scotland Yard, across London, and online, where attendees were asked about their views on the creation of a stop and search charter, what its aims should be, and how it should be scrutinised. Feedback from these sessions was distilled into eight themes, tested via a survey, and then put to groups of young people who were invited to New Scotland Yard to help put together a draft of the Charter. In terms of the ultimate purpose of the Charter, its primary aim (as Rowley states) is about improving confidence in the use of stop and search both within London’s communities and amongst officers themselves.
What does the Charter actually say?
The Charter has eight key themes:
- Focus on the quality of the encounter
- Improved training
- Improved supervision
- Improved complaints handling
- Better use of technology
- Enhanced independent governance and scrutiny
- Community involvement in where, when and why stop and search is being used
- Better public understanding of stop and search
Each theme is made up of a ‘Commitment’ from the Met, and a ‘Community Expectation’ section which summarises the expectations of those who participated in the Charter’s development in relation to the theme in question. Unsurprisingly, the content of the Charter itself is not particularly novel, nor does it require much serious effort on the part of the police. It is also striking how much of the Charter’s content is made up of ‘commitments’ that represent an existing legal obligation, or should already be in place, based on the lowest possible expectations of police officer conduct. For example, under the first theme, it is stated that ‘The MPS will commit to making sure that officers do stop and search with professionalism, showing basic forms of respect’. The Met ‘should […] commit to not stereotyping individuals based on their clothing, race or whether they are in a group’. The bar, as they say, is on the ground. The Charter states that police officers should be made to understand what being stopped and searched feels like for the person being stopped – without stating how this might be done (moreover, it does not necessarily follow that this would have a positive impact on how stop and searches are conducted).
It's almost not worth mentioning the theme on training (theme two), given how frequently and thoughtlessly ‘training’ is cited as a commonsense solution to a variety of problems within policing across jurisdictions, audiences, contexts, and subject matter. Across all eight themes, training is mentioned in relation to: officers’ ‘communication and perspective’, ‘improve[d] communication’, ‘improved professionalism’, ‘the [geographic] areas they [the police] work’, ‘de-escalation, humility and communication’, training for supervisors and senior staff, police officers in schools, and those on probation (presumably, for conducting ‘poor’ stops) having to redo training before they can carry on using the tactic. These training-related commitments are comically vague and insubstantial: ‘Training should make sure there is improved professionalism’; ‘Work should be done to prevent prejudice against protected characteristics’.
The third theme, ‘Improved supervision’, commits the Met to conducting ‘regular and random reviews of stop and searches’, and states that police officers ‘should be held accountable for their actions’ and that ‘the MPS should make sure there are sanctions for poor performance’. Without explaining what it might actually entail, the third theme also commits the Met to ‘a generally more holistic and inclusive approach to stop and search’. What is ‘holistic’ stop and search? The fourth theme, ‘Improved complaints handling’, states that the Met ‘will commit to making sure the complaints process is clearly communicated and accessible to everyone’, ‘prevent[ing] internal bias by ensuring the community are involved with decision making in the complaints process’. A welcome point about data recording is raised in relation to complaints statistics: ‘The term ‘all ethnic minorities’ should be more representative and not grouped into one’.
The shortest of the themes is theme five – ‘Better use of technology’ – which, worryingly, contains a commitment from the Met to ‘explore the possible use of artificial intelligence to identify trends’. While dangers of AI-related technology in policing are already well documented, they are nevertheless beyond the scope of this blog post. However, the Charter contains little further specification about what the use of AI in relation to stop and search might entail, how it might be done in practice, or what the possible outcomes of using this technology might be.
The sixth theme, ‘Enhanced independent governance and scrutiny’, is similarly brief and imprecise, and states that the Met ‘will commit to independent and consistent involvement in governance and scrutiny’, with the ‘Community Expectation’ subsection mentioning community groups and the dip-sampling of body-worn video footage.
Theme seven, ‘Community involvement in where, when and why stop and search is being used’ overlaps significantly with theme six: the Met ‘will commit to working with local communities to regularly discuss when and were stop and search is being used’. The Met ‘must listen to the concerns of the community and explain why it is being used to reduce fear and show that it is being used fairly and without prejudice’. Police officers ‘need to be able to show […] their suspicions are justified so the community feels confident they are not being stereotyped or targeted’.
The eighth and final theme, ‘Better public understanding of stop and search’, sets out the Met’s commitment to ‘educating Londoners of all ages’ on stop and search in relation to legal rights, procedure, and ‘the reason behind each stop and search’. Police officers in schools are positioned as an important part of this: ‘Schools officers […] should be trained to deliver workshops and have open discussions with young people’. It is also suggested that young people should appear in and contribute to the creation of stop and search-related content released by the Met on social media platforms, in part to demonstrate ‘a joint approach’. The final theme concludes, yet again, with a proposal that is already legally required of police officers: to give someone a receipt of their stop and search.
How does the Charter hold the Met to account?
Almost all of the above is irrelevant depending on the mechanism by which the Charter can be enforced and police officers meaningfully held to account. So, is the Charter legally binding? Has an independent review body, with adequate legal powers, been set up to oversee the Met’s adherence to their commitments under the Charter? In short, no. The Charter (which is described as a ‘formal statement’ or ‘a set of formal commitments’ – both phrases with no particular legal meaning) states that five senior figures in the Met have been ‘carefully selected’ as ‘Lead Responsible Officers’ to create a ‘mutually agreed action plan’ within their respective areas of London. The intention is that these action plans ‘will be collated and put into a tracker, which will be made public’. The tracker, it is claimed, ‘allows the public and the [as yet unspecified] governing body to measure progress against the change and hold the Metropolitan Police to account’. In recognition of the fact that there must be ‘an element of independent scrutiny’, the Charter states that the Met ‘aims to identify and work with an independent body to provide regular updates on progress to Londoners’. And that’s it, there’s no further detail given –that’s the last sentence of the Charter before the acknowledgements.
So, in answer to the question, ‘How does the Charter hold the Met to account?’, the simple response is: it doesn’t. If the Met fails to abide by the guidelines, rules, recommendations, or however the deliberately ambiguous ‘themes’ of the Charter are conceived, there are no meaningful or impactful consequences to be faced. The ‘commitments’ mentioned throughout the Charter are little more than an empty and lazy PR exercise without an independent and robust framework of accountability in place. At best, the Charter represents an attempt to engage with communities around London about the use of stop and search, and to try to work the views of a group of young people into a vaguely ‘official’, albeit not particularly ambitious, set of aims in relation to improving police conduct during stop and search. At worst, however, the Charter functions as both a tick-box exercise and as a tool for the Met to use in response to criticism relating to stop and search or to gesture at if the use of stop and search increases. Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan told the BBC that ‘Londoners will rightly judge this charter by its results’. Don’t hold your breath.
By Holly Bird, StopWatch volunteer
All blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of StopWatch UK.