So-called “crime predicting” technology risks creating mass human rights violations.

We deserve real safety, not more surveillance.

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Read a summary of the topline results here. More to follow in the coming week:
www.stop-watch.org/news-opinion...

In 2024/25 the most significant year-on-year increases in stop-search arrests for stolen property (+1,838) and drugs (+2,244) masking declines in search arrests for offensive weapons (-671) and going equipped (-480)

Drugs searches remain the operational priority, while stolen property searches also increased on the previous year, from 60,534 to 64,810. They make up 12.4% of all stop-searches in 2024/25

... this contrasts with the number of offensive weapons searches (77,403) which fell 8% on the previous year. Offensive weapons made for 14% of all searches in 2024/25, compared with 16% the previous year

As ever, the majority of stop-searches conducted were for drugs: 318,498, or 61% of all searches in 2024/25.
There was a small increase in the total number of drugs searches (+1 percentage point) on 2023/24...

The differential between was widest amongst the following forces:
The City of London - 10.9 (Black) : 1 (white)
Dorset - 8.3 (Black) : 1 (white)
West Mercia - 7.9 (Black) : 1 (white)

Outside of London, Merseyside and Greater Manchester police conducted the most searches

By self-defined ethnicity, the disparity between Black and white people in stop-searches is roughly the same as the previous year: in 2023/24, Black people in England and Wales were stopped roughly 3.7 times more often. In 2024/25 they were stopped 3.8 times more often

The chipping away at the number of No Further Action outcomes hints at a more interventionist type of stop-search policing, where officers either instruct individuals towards community resolutions and 'voluntary' attendance of correction courses, or give verbal warnings and confiscate items

On outcomes: 15% of stop-searches ended in arrest, a small rise reflecting a long-running inverse relationship between stop-search volumes and arrests from the use of the tactic.
Searches ending in No Further Action fell two percentage points from 69% to 67%

The increases are as follows -
Section 60 ('violence'): from 5,288 to 5,572 searches (+5.4%)
Section 342E (for Serious Violence Reduction Orders): from 63 to 294 searches (+366.7%)
Section 11 (on protesters): from 3 to 46 searches

Q. What do these search powers have in common?
A. None of them require officers to have or provide grounds for having 'reasonable suspicion' of the individual they wish to search

The increases in stop-searches derive from the following powers:
Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994
Section 342E of the Sentencing Code (as inserted by the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022)
Section 11 of the Public Order Act 2023

The fall was driven by a decrease in searches under section 1 and associated legislation (from 530,863 in 2023/24 to 522,670 in 2024/25), which, by its volume, masks rises elsewhere

There were a total of 528,582 stop-searches in 2024/25, -1.4% on the previous period (536,217)