Police Stop and Search Powers: Understanding the Adversarial Nature of Contact Between PSNI and the Public (original) (raw)

As an initial point of comparison, Northern Ireland possesses almost identical stop and search powers and Codes of Practice to those of England and Wales in terms of the Police and Crime Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 (PACE) and the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (MDA) (c.f. Dickson, 2013). In turn, the volume, proportionality and arrest rates related to stop and search are therefore legitimate points of analysis (Scotland is of course governed by yet another legal framework, rendering such comparisons slightly more difficult). However, while in England and Wales almost all (currently over 99%) stops/searches are conducted under 'normal', PACE-type powers, in Northern Ireland only 70% of stops are carried out under such everyday powers (Hargreaves et al., 2017; PSNI, 2017b). The remaining 30% are conducted under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Northern Ireland-only Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007 (JSA). While the use of terrorist-related powers comprises a stark contrast with England and Wales (Hargreaves et al., 2017), it is not the intention to meld the analysis of terrorist and 'normal' (PACE-type) stop and search powers into a single and potentially muddled profile. Rather, this policy brief focuses deliberately upon 'ordinary' stop and search powers used by PSNI precisely because it is those powers which have (arguably) failed to come under the purview of the police (or public) oversight in the country. In stark contrast to the voluminous research dedicated to counter-terrorist powers utilised during the conflict and post-conflict periods of the jurisdiction (c.f. Hillyard, 1988; 1994; McGovern and Tobin, 2010; McVeigh, 1994; Seymour, 2017), it is precisely the absence of policy or academic attention directed at PACE-type stop and search which merits further investigation. This relative invisibility has, in a way both like and unlike the situation in Scotland before the groundbreaking research of Murray (2014b), persisted in the face of evidence of a recurrent problem with the use of stop and search in Northern Ireland. Not once has the power been referenced in the past decade of policing plans set forth by the Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB). But over the same period (2004/5-2015/16) use of stop and search in Northern Ireland increased by 74%, and it is now used here at a significantly higher rate than in England and Wales or Scotland (Bradford, 2017; Hargreaves, Husband and Linehan, 2017; PSNI, 2017b; Murray and Harkin, 2017). Consideration of such 'ordinary' stop and search powers by PSNI can usefully start with the 'importation' of PACE into Northern Ireland. While the political, civil and cultural context in the country in 1989 bore little resemblance to that in England and Wales, the underpinning police organisational 'currency' of stop and search in terms of its efficacy has remained as a remarkable constant over the years (Bradford & Loader, 2016). The PSNI still adhere to the inherently 'deterrent' notion of PACE-type powers to stop and search citizens (in spite of its technically investigative basis), where the power is construed as a multipurpose tool to respond to almost any 'street-level' criminogenic circumstance (Bradford, 2017). Further tying notions of stop and search to general purpose, PSNI also link the power to their indeterminate duties and police powers set out in section 32 of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 centred on protecting life and property; preserving order; and