BLUNKETT PLAN IS MAD, SAYS CRIME EXPERT

PLANS to make police provide those they question on the streets with notes
of the episode are madness, according to the Home Office's expert on
stop-and-search powers.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, is to announce the plans today. He
believes that issuing the records will give the public confidence in the use
of stop-and-search powers and will check racism among officers. Marian
Fitzgerald, who studied the use of stop-and-search powers for the Home
Office and Scotland Yard, said that the idea of handing out records was
"complete madness, a nonsense".

Dr Fitzgerald said: "The Police Reform Bill talks about cutting bureaucracy
to get officers out on the streets, but a lot of this is generated by the
Home Office, the Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Audit Commission. Here
is the Home Office adding further unnecessary paperwork."

The idea of handing out notes on "stops" and "stop and searches" was
recommended in a report by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny on the inquiry
into Stephen Lawrence's murder. The Home Office wants officers not only to
ask the name and address of those they have stopped, but also their
ethnicity. Eventually police would carry small machines to write up the
reports.

Dr Fitzgerald said: "I don't think this is helpful. It's potentially
inflammatory. It will inhibit police from talking to people and you won't be
able to tell anything from the figures."

Her research showed the proportion of suspects from ethnic groups stopped by
police often matched the type of suspect that witnesses had described rather
than the ethnic make-up of an area. There were also factors such as the time
of day that the stop and search was made and who was on the streets at the
time.

The number of stop and searches in England and Wales fell by 17 per cent in
the year to April 2001 after a 20 per cent drop in the previous 12 months.
The number of stop and searches in England and Wales was 686,114, the lowest
level since 1995, Home Office statistics reveal. In 1998-99 there were
almost 1.1 million stop and searches.

Figures for the Metropolitan Police area show that stop and searches fell by
a further 6 per cent in 2000-01, after a 40 per cent fall in the previous
year. There were a total of 167,074 stop and searches in the force's area in
2000-01.

The huge decline in the use of stop and searches on the streets appears to
confirm a collapse in the confidence of the police to operate the power.
Senior officers say that they now use the power in a manner that is much
more targeted and based on intelligence.

Although there was an overall 6 per cent fall in the Metropolitan Police
area, there was a 6 per cent rise in the number of black people stopped and
a 3 per cent rise in the number of people of Asian origin stopped compared
with a 14 per cent drop in the number of white people stopped. Across
England and Wales there was a 4 per cent increase in the number of black
people stopped.