Changes to police inspections can only be meaningful if the government commits to expanding the powers of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to intervene in failing police forces as part of the Crime and Policing Bill. This is necessary as HMICFRS currently lacks enforcement powers, resulting in a regulatory deficit whereby adequate sanctions are not at HMICFRS’ disposal in order to satisfactorily promote voluntary compliance, enabling forces to disregard HMICFRS’ recommendations.
StopWatch recognises that the ability for HMICFRS to hold forces accountable for the fair and appropriate use of stop and search powers is currently limited due to its lack of enforcement powers. The government should introduce primary legislation to enable HMICFRS to ‘do more than just make recommendations and empower them to set mandatory professional standards, with the ability to suspend poorly performing forces from using stop and search powers until such standards are met, which should be subject to further review. Forces that fail to meet acceptable standards should face sanctions’ (Shiner, Delsol and Samota, 2024, p. 9). Anything short of this would not adequately address the issue of police misuse of stop and search, including the persistent racial disproportionality in the application of the power.