News and opinion

Little change in stop search data trends; importance of ethnic disparities downplayed

Mainstream discourse on police numbers neglects to ask if the officers recruited are any good?

StopWatch, in coalition with Runnymede Trust and 24 other racial justice organisations, calls out Met commissioner Mark Rowley's 'A New Met for London' plan.

StopWatch volunteer Ella Ticktin-Smith considers the new stop and search powers conferred by the Public Order Act

StopWatch volunteer Corey Campbell reflects on the Supreme Court's ruling in the 'officer W80 case'

Judges also call for clarity over police code of ethics

Independent scrutiny panel for Beds, Herts, and Cambs highlights successes

Interactive tracker displays data for every police force in England and Wales

Police force lies about its involvement in the deaths of two teenage boys, gets found out. All in a day’s work. But why do the media have to be complicit?

With a focus on the use of private technology companies and operational procedures, PhD researcher Tyler Dadge highlights several key questions that are yet to be answered concerning the police's use of facial recognition, and argues that algorithmic accuracy is just one issue amongst many when it comes to police use of this tech

The backlash to the Casey Review's central finding indicates a denial of the realities and experiences of the people impacted by police discrimination going back decades

A coalition of human rights groups has raised concerns about the piloting of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) which give new stop-and-search powers to police forces

In autumn 2022, following a landmark court case, the Met agreed to a 'wholesale change' of their database. Shaquille Scott-Davis wonders what this means and whether this is happening at all

Police forces across the country are about to receive yet another income boost to their coffers, but with the mushrooming of scandals and institutional rot, many taxpayers must be wondering 'what for'?

Ella Thomson compares the findings of a research paper that suggests police searches may produce more harm than good with the new Met chief's latest data-driven intentions for fighting crime

The new Met chief's big data obsession risks overlooking long-standing concerns from Londoners about police culture and conduct

As the pandemic effect recedes, 2022 figures highlight something many minoritised communities knew at the time: the oppressive nature of lockdown policing

Police officers more frequently stop and search members of the public in neighbourhoods where well-off and economically precarious people co-exist. Joel H. Suss and Thiago R. Oliveira show that this pattern holds up even when accounting for other important factors, such as previous local crime rates and a neighbourhood’s ethnic makeup. Although the evidence is that stop and search activity does little to reduce crime, the police persist with the practice in order to maintain social order

In this article, StopWatch volunteer Ella discusses Priti Patel's new drugs policy white paper and its implications for stop and search practices.

As the Met appoints a new commissioner, former police officer Chantelle Lunt argues that unless all police forces across England and Wales adopt a new model of policing, the people should #withdrawconsent

Sydney Kirton describes the London team's trip to the Houses of Parliament to present the latest findings from the women and girls research project

Describing drill as ‘gang-related music’ that ostensibly encourages serious violence is deeply problematic, argues Dr Lambros Fatsis

Sydney provides a moving testament of how the girls' research project process has affected her perceptions of policing

Home sec threatens to turn back time by rolling section 60 restrictions back to the 1990s, but fails to appreciate things have changed

New crime data remind us that fraud is bigger than knife and drug-related crime ever was… not that you would know it from media coverage, argues Eugene K