The “Beating Crime Plan”: Will It Really “Beat Crime”?

The answer is no, no it won’t.

What Actually is This Plan?

The “Beating Crime Plan” was released on the 27th of July 2021 by the UK Government and according to the Government website it intends “to reduce crime, protect victims and make the country safer”. Surprisingly, it’s not expected to be exactly what the government say it is. And has instead been rebranded as ineffective and discriminatory by many.

What Do The Police Think?

Representing 130,000 police officers, the Police Federation of England and Wales said that it had no confidence in the Home Secretary, Priti Patel. They also added that the government “could not be trusted”. When frontline police officers have declared to have no confidence in those they serve under, surely it must act as a trigger for the government to recognise where they have gone wrong (where haven’t they at this point) and do something about it. But we all know that most definitely won’t happen.

Expanding Stop and Search Powers

To preface this, stop and search powers under English law is an expansive subject area and is itself worthy of an entire article. The stop and search powers of concern under the plan are the ones granted to officers under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The grounds for these powers set out in the legislation are:

“(1)If a police officer of or above the rank of inspector reasonably believes—

(a)that incidents involving serious violence may take place in any locality in his police area, and that it is expedient to give an authorisation under this section to prevent their occurrence,

(aa)that—

(i)an incident involving serious violence has taken place in England and Wales in his police area;

(ii)a dangerous instrument or offensive weapon used in the incident is being carried in any locality in his police area by a person; and

(iii)it is expedient to give an authorisation under this section to find the instrument or weapon;] or

(b)that persons are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons in any locality in his police area without good reason,

he may give an authorisation that the powers conferred by this section are to be exercisable at any place within that locality for a specified period not exceeding 24 hours.”

And the powers given under this section are:

“(4)This section confers on any constable in uniform power—

(a)to stop any pedestrian and search him or anything carried by him for offensive weapons or dangerous instruments;

(b)to stop any vehicle and search the vehicle, its driver and any passenger for offensive weapons or dangerous instruments.

(4A). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(5)A constable may, in the exercise of the powers conferred by subsection (4) above], stop any person or vehicle and make any search he thinks fit whether or not he has any grounds for suspecting that the person or vehicle is carrying weapons or articles of that kind.”

The government is now permanently relaxing the grounds required for the imposition of a section 60, meaning they can be imposed by a lower ranking officer and last longer. This comes after a pilot of these relaxations in 7 police forces started in 2019 and was then extended to include all police forces across England and Wales in September 2020. The government has justified the permanent relaxation by claiming it would “empower police to take more knives off the streets”.

However, the government’s justification comes into question when the statistics around section 60 powers are revealed. Only 4% of stop and searches conducted under section 60 powers resulted in arrest. This is in comparison with the 13% of stop and searches conducted with reasonable suspicion that an individual is in possession of a weapon, drugs or stolen property which result in arrest.

Issues of discrimination arise when looking at statistics, which show that black people are 9 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched under all stop and search powers. However, this statistic gets even more shocking, with black people being 18 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched under section 60 powers. Highlighting how tensions between the police and minority communities may escalate if these new powers are enforced.

The entirety of the government’s justification of wanting “to take more knives off the streets” can be challenged on discovering that available figures suggest that in only 1% of blanket searches (searches conducted under section 60) weapons are actually found. And that a government study of an operation using this power found “no statistically significant crime-reducing effect from the large increase in weapons searches”.

Human rights organisation Liberty has said that the permanent relaxation would “compound discrimination in Britain and divide communities”. Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, described it as “alarming and counter-productive”.

Attempting to Prevent Crime and Community Visibility

A further £17 million in funding for Violence Reduction Units which aim to deliver high-intensity therapeutic and specialist support from trained youth workers has been included under the plan, according to ministers. This aims to divert young people away from violence, especially at crisis points. For example, when young people enter hospital with an injury caused by knife crime. Also, £45 million is being invested in specialist support in both mainstream schools and alternate provision – alternate provision is education outside of mainstream schools which is organised by schools or the local authority for students who don’t attend mainstream schools. This investment is focused on areas which are serious violence hotspots and hopes to target young people at risk of involvement in violence and encourages them to engage in education which hopes to deter them from violence.

The forementioned funding and investment in crime prevention on the surface displays thinking in the right direction on behalf of the government, in my opinion. However, this goes nowhere near far enough in terms of the extent it is needed. Also, best put in the words of Nick Thomas-Symonds, the current shadow home secretary, “The Conservatives are all talk and no action when it comes to tackling crime”. Therefore, the effectiveness and actuality of this investment and funding for crime prevention can be called into question.

In terms of community visibility, the government is introducing leaderboards or “league tables” for 101 and 999 call answering times split by regional police force, which is supposedly giving the public more opportunity to scrutinise results. But when taking into account how much public scrutiny the police have received recently and how much they have actually taken on board, I am led to seriously doubt this will have much impact.

The Super Complaint

A super complaint is a complaint made by a designated body that “a feature, or combination of features, of policing in England and Wales by one or more than one police force is, or appears to be, significantly harming the interests of the public.”(Section 29A, Police Reform Act 2002). The super complaints are made to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMICFRS) but considered by HMICFRS, the College of Policing and the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

‘Designated body’ is referred to above, since ‘designated bodies’ are the only organisations permitted to make super complaints. What is a ‘designated body’? It is explained in Section 29B of the Police Reform Act 2002 that a ‘designated body’ is a body which the Home Secretary has designated under the relevant regulations. And in determining whether a body should be designated, the Home Secretary applies the criteria set out in the regulations.

The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) is “a network of 160 organisations working towards a fair and effective criminal justice system.” They have lodged a super-complaint against Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 because they believe that the blanket nature of this power is resulting in thousands of innocent people being unnecessarily stopped and searched every year.

In their super-complaint, while reiterating the shocking statistics I have included previously showing the power’s ineffective and discriminatory nature, they also express concern that section 60 may be making it harder for the police to tackle crime. Previous research conducted by the CJA found that the harmful or ineffective use of stop and search damages trust and confidence in the police, consequently preventing victims and witnesses from cooperating with police.

The 6 recommendations made in the super-complaint by the CJA are:

1. The government should repeal section 60 powers.

2. If section 60 powers are retained, the government should introduce stronger safeguards to mitigate the harms caused.

3. The Home Office should mandate the current College of Policing guidance on community scrutiny for stop and search across all police forces.

4. The Home Office should establish an independent, national body to scrutinise national stop and search trends and support robust community scrutiny.

5. The Home Office should improve the consistency of data recording to increase transparency of all stops and searches, particularly for age and ethnicity.

6. The government should reinvest and ring-fence funding for youth services to ensure targeted support is available for those at risk of involvement in knife crime.

Conclusion

I would like to start by highlighting that there has been very little media coverage of the plan, this can probably be partly attributed to the overwhelming number of government scandals revealed this year and how they took the spotlight in the headlines.

I hope the statistics I’ve shared and the topics I’ve covered display how the “beating crime plan” will not work. While it must be recognised the government may be starting to think in the right direction of investing in the prevention of crime, it also must be recognised that current investment goes nowhere near far enough in terms of what is required. In addition, the government has a track record of being “all talk and no action when it comes to tackling crime”.

And lastly, it is quite frankly disappointing that the government have once again been ignorant of the ineffective nature of the plan and have only cared that it makes them look tough on crime instead of taking action that could stop and prevent crime. And instead, they have made policing harder for officers that don’t even trust them. This is just another display of government incompetence to add to the mountain-high pile.

What do you think? Will it really “beat crime”?