Top cop: ethnic minority searches are 'disproportionate’ (From Bucks Free Press)

Top cop: ethnic minority searches are 'disproportionate’

10:16am Friday 25th June 2010 in

By Oliver Evans »

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This story was updated at 3pm.

POLICE stop and searches amongst ethnic minorities in High Wycombe are ‘disproportionate’, the chief constable of Thames Valley Police has said.

Of 1,586 ethnic minorities searched in 10 months, some 87 were arrested - and chief constable Sara Thornton said this was too low.

Independent police authority member Ben Simpson said: “It appears to be somewhat disproportionate given the population.”

Mr Simpson said: “I believe that to be inappropriate and unlawful.”

Chf Const Thornton said: “You are absolutely right. Wycombe is the most disproportionate.”

A total 8,976 people were searched between April 2009 to February 2010, with 2,746 from 'black and minority ethnic' groups.

Yet of this number the majority, 1,586 were from Wycombe district compared to 574 in Aylesbury Vale, 397 in Chiltern and 189 in South Buckinghamshire districts.

This means 45 per cent of Wycombe searches were amongst ethnic minorities, which make up 13 per cent of the population.

Ethnic minorities made up 23 per cent of searches in Aylesbury Vale, by comparison. Some eight per cent of residents are from an ethnic minority.

This was 16 per cent against a population of 10 per cent in the South Buckinghamshire district, which includes Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross.

Click the link at the bottom of this story to read the full figures.

And Chf Const Thornton said: “My biggest problem with stop and search is I don’t think the arrest rate is going up.” This was under ten per cent, she said.

She said: “You are stopping a lot of people from black and Asian backgrounds who are not arrested and that leads of grievances.”

Chf Const Thornton said the district was ‘where some of the wild comments are made’ about the police’s reasons for stopping and searching residents.

The powers must only be used to detect crimes – for which there must be ‘reasonable’ grounds – and not as a deterrent, she said.

She said: “Otherwise they are wasting their time and my time and your money.”

Chf Const Thornton said: “We need to have a good conversation with the local community about that.

“This is also a community who feel very heavily that they are victimised in terms of crime.”

The force would be discussing the issue with Wycombe Race Equality Council, she said. The force did not work to targets, she emphasised.

But she said: “Even if we were perfect, that doesn’t mean we get proportional outcomes.”

Knife crime was a key concern, she said.

Minutes of the last Buckinghamshire Police Committee show the county had ‘lower ethnicity recording rates and intelligence of value’ than others in TVP.

Yet county commander Chief Superintendent Paul Emmings said this did ‘not accurately reflect the true value of the searches’.

Police ‘had run operations with specific intelligence, which in some cases had led to an increase in [black and minority ethnic] stop and searches’.

He cited the example of a burglary gang investigated by police. The ‘local community…had been entirely supportive of the increased stop and search incidents’ the minutes record.

Independent police authority member Alison Phillips, who was at the June 8 Bucks meeting, said she was ‘satisfied’ with the response.

She said: “He was able to give a good account for the reasons for the increase. They were intelligence led stop and searches.”

But fellow independent member Beverley Thompson said: “I didn’t feel convinced that the force was on top of issues of proportionality.”

She added: “There is some serious work we need to look at around arrest rates.”

Comments(32)

MCarey says...
10:34am Fri 25 Jun 10

it doesnt sound that disproportionate to me. ethnic minorities in High Wycombe arent that much of a minority compared to many other areas