Stop-and-Search Powers scrapped Permanently!

Priti Patel has decided to ban the “restrictions” on “suspicion less” stop and search warrant. This will worsen the existing division between the police and civilians. Section 60 is the guarantee of safeguard from the atrocities committed by the police.

Louis Althusser had termed police as the, ” repressive state apparatus”. Where police work for the state and against the communities. It operates primarily by means of mental and physical coercion and violence (latent and actual). This has been evident in the George Floyd case, where the brutality of police apparatus had been showcased. Section 60 is also one of such powers which when mishandled is very dangerous.

Police can expect serious violence and to look for weapons, either before they can be used or used in a recent attack. Ms. Patel’s letter effectively scarps limitations pit in place in 2014 by then home secretary Theresa May. The Changes also extend the length of power can be used from 15 hours to 24 hours. Also it lowers the rank at which the power can be operated from senior officer to inspector.

Ms. Patel said that the restrictions were being eased to “drive down” knife crime by “making it easier for officers to use these powers to seize more weapons, arrest more suspects and save more lives”. Removing section 60 would worsen the safeguards existing between police and communities at a time when public trust and confidence in police is at low.

This lifting of the restriction makes the minority community vulnerable to police atrocities and also to their brutality. Ethnic minority will be more stopped and searched than white people. This disproportionately affect people of color, particularly black people. As said by Marxist critic that police are the fables of the same story and they work for them. They do not work in the interest of people but against the people. This scarping of section 60 will have serious repercussions among the communities.