My research focuses on the transnational police relationships, trust and the role of law. As well as an interest in transnational policing and the power of the state to enforce law beyond its on territorial boundaries I am interested in law enforcement within the state. My existing publications focus on the domestic power of the police to stop and search and I am actively involved in research in this area.
The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belong... more The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belongings is common to policing worldwide. Drawing on the small, but growing, academic literature on ‘stop and search’ in a range of different geographical and institutional settings, this chapter examines the use of this power in theory and in practice. It explores the range of purposes for which stop and search is deployed, including the often vaguely defined general goals of security, crime prevention and counter-terrorism. Here it is contended that stop and search is the widest and least circumscribed coercive power of government. Although it is often socially invisible, stop and search is among the first and most frequent contacts between police and public and has far-reaching consequences. The chapter reflects on the problems of ensuring that police power is constrained by mechanisms of transparency, accountability and respect for human rights, and notes that this is particularly important as police power globalises. We argue that the way forward is to develop an agenda for transnational and comparative research to provide the basis for mechanisms to ensure that increasingly globally connected police power can be held to account.
This paper examines the extraordinary rise and fall of police powers to stop-and-search without s... more This paper examines the extraordinary rise and fall of police powers to stop-and-search without suspicion in public places in England and Wales. Suspicionless searches – authorised by s.60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and s.44 Terrorism Act 2000 – rose to a peak of 360,000 in 2009 and then declined radically to fewer than 1,000 in 2015. The paper seeks to explain changes in the use of suspicionless search powers drawing on a theory of the relationship between law and policing by examining the police ‘working environment’ comprised of three structures: law, politics and work. The paper concludes with a consideration of attempts to reform stop-and-search powers and the implications for the future of suspicionless searches.
Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 grants the police a novel stop and s... more Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 grants the police a novel stop and search power to tackle serious violence and search for dangerous instruments or offensive weapons. The use of the power may be authorised in localised areas for up to 24 hours, during which time police officers may stop and search individuals for the aforementioned items without any suspicion that they may be carrying such items or involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever. As Lord Brown noted in a case involving a similar provision this ‘radically... departs from our traditional understanding of the limits of police power’. In R (Roberts) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and another, the Supreme Court considered the compatibility of s 60 with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The challenge had failed in the lower courts and the appeal was reduced to a narrow point of contention by the time it reached the Supreme Court, where the judges unanimously agreed ...
The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belong... more The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belongings is common to policing worldwide. Drawing on the small, but growing, academic literature on ‘stop and search’ in a range of different geographical and institutional settings, this chapter examines the use of this power in theory and in practice. It explores the range of purposes for which stop and search is deployed, including the often vaguely defined general goals of security, crime prevention and counter-terrorism. Here it is contended that stop and search is the widest and least circumscribed coercive power of government. Although it is often socially invisible, stop and search is among the first and most frequent contacts between police and public and has far-reaching consequences. The chapter reflects on the problems of ensuring that police power is constrained by mechanisms of transparency, accountability and respect for human rights, and notes that this is particularly important as police power globalises. We argue that the way forward is to develop an agenda for transnational and comparative research to provide the basis for mechanisms to ensure that increasingly globally connected police power can be held to account.
The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belong... more The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belongings is common to policing worldwide. Drawing on the small, but growing, academic literature on ‘stop and search’ in a range of different geographical and institutional settings, this chapter examines the use of this power in theory and in practice. It explores the range of purposes for which stop and search is deployed, including the often vaguely defined general goals of security, crime prevention and counter-terrorism. Here it is contended that stop and search is the widest and least circumscribed coercive power of government. Although it is often socially invisible, stop and search is among the first and most frequent contacts between police and public and has far-reaching consequences. The chapter reflects on the problems of ensuring that police power is constrained by mechanisms of transparency, accountability and respect for human rights, and notes that this is particularly important as police power globalises. We argue that the way forward is to develop an agenda for transnational and comparative research to provide the basis for mechanisms to ensure that increasingly globally connected police power can be held to account.
This paper examines the extraordinary rise and fall of police powers to stop-and-search without s... more This paper examines the extraordinary rise and fall of police powers to stop-and-search without suspicion in public places in England and Wales. Suspicionless searches – authorised by s.60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and s.44 Terrorism Act 2000 – rose to a peak of 360,000 in 2009 and then declined radically to fewer than 1,000 in 2015. The paper seeks to explain changes in the use of suspicionless search powers drawing on a theory of the relationship between law and policing by examining the police ‘working environment’ comprised of three structures: law, politics and work. The paper concludes with a consideration of attempts to reform stop-and-search powers and the implications for the future of suspicionless searches.
Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 grants the police a novel stop and s... more Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 grants the police a novel stop and search power to tackle serious violence and search for dangerous instruments or offensive weapons. The use of the power may be authorised in localised areas for up to 24 hours, during which time police officers may stop and search individuals for the aforementioned items without any suspicion that they may be carrying such items or involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever. As Lord Brown noted in a case involving a similar provision this ‘radically... departs from our traditional understanding of the limits of police power’. In R (Roberts) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and another, the Supreme Court considered the compatibility of s 60 with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The challenge had failed in the lower courts and the appeal was reduced to a narrow point of contention by the time it reached the Supreme Court, where the judges unanimously agreed ...
The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belong... more The power to stop people in public places, to question them and to search their person and belongings is common to policing worldwide. Drawing on the small, but growing, academic literature on ‘stop and search’ in a range of different geographical and institutional settings, this chapter examines the use of this power in theory and in practice. It explores the range of purposes for which stop and search is deployed, including the often vaguely defined general goals of security, crime prevention and counter-terrorism. Here it is contended that stop and search is the widest and least circumscribed coercive power of government. Although it is often socially invisible, stop and search is among the first and most frequent contacts between police and public and has far-reaching consequences. The chapter reflects on the problems of ensuring that police power is constrained by mechanisms of transparency, accountability and respect for human rights, and notes that this is particularly important as police power globalises. We argue that the way forward is to develop an agenda for transnational and comparative research to provide the basis for mechanisms to ensure that increasingly globally connected police power can be held to account.
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