Police power (stop & search) essay - English Legal System
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Course
9084 Law (9084)
Institution
Sunway University
This essay can be helpful for your CIE A levels, AS level exams or even first year law degree. All my essays have been marked by my lecturer and given good grades! This essay was awarded top in the class marks (English legal system)
Intro
The police are a civil force of a state responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and
the maintenance of public order. There must be sufficient powers for the police to investigate
crime while also respecting and protecting the citizens’ civil rights.
The law on police powers is mainly contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
(PACE). The Codes of practice made under s.66 are designed to ensure individual civil rights
are protected and respected. If the breaches of the codes are serious, evidence obtained as a
result may be inadmissible in a criminal trial. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
(CJPOA) extended police powers like the abolition of right to silence and the carrying out arrest
without a warrant in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA).
Pre-arrest powers
Stop and account are pre-arrest powers where police are free to ask members of the public
questions although they are not obliged to answer. The Code of Practice A allows police officers
to request for a person to account for themselves for record of the encounter. Failure to comply
is an offence and may form the basis of an arrest. Examples for the obstruction of police duty
are found in Rice v Connolly and Ricketts v Cox where the defendants were uncooperative
during questioning.
Stop & Search
The powers to stop and search are mainly contained in s.1 of PACE 1984 which gives police
the right to stop and search people and vehicles in a public place if they have good reasons to
suspect the person is in possession of stolen or prohibited articles. The Criminal Justice Act
2003 included searches for articles intended to cause criminal damage. Any stolen or prohibited
articles discovered during the search may be seized. Moreover, 1.1 of the Code of practice A
states that powers to stop and search must be used fairly, responsibly, with respect for people
being searched and without unlawful discrimination. Under the Equality Act 2010, it is unlawful
for police officers to discriminate against any person on the grounds of protected characteristics
when using their powers.
The requirement of reasonable grounds for suspicion is intended to protect individuals from
being subject to stop and search on a random basis, or on grounds that the law rightly finds
unacceptable like age or racial background. According to Code of Practice A, reasonable
grounds for suspecting can never be supported on the basis of personal factors like physical
appearance or the fact that the person is known to have a previous conviction. Generalisation or
stereotypical images that certain categories of people are more likely to be involved in criminal
activity is also not allowed to be used.
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