Stop And Search Saves Lives — But Are We Too Afraid To Admit It?

As politicians debate and communities grieve, the question remains: when did saving lives become controversial?

The debate around police stop and search powers has long divided opinion with critics arguing it’s discriminatory and supporters saying it’s essential for public safety. To understand who first wanted to ban or limit stop and search, it helps to see what’s happening now with knife crime.

The most famous early example was the “sus law” in the 1970s–80s, which allowed police to stop and search people merely on suspicion. It was heavily criticised for targeting Black communities. Following the Brixton riots in 1981 and the Scarman Report, the law was abolished under Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1981.

Later reforms under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) introduced clearer rules for stop and search.

More recently, Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary, significantly restricted the use of stop and search in 2014, arguing too many innocent people were being stopped, particularly young Black men. Her reforms led to a sharp fall in the number of searches carried out across England and Wales.

These stats show why stop and search remains such a central issue:

In the year ending December 2024, there were 54,587 knife-enabled offences in England and Wales — a 2% rise from 2023.
London accounted for 31% of these incidents, with around 16,789 knife-related offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police — roughly one every 30 minutes.
Knife-enabled homicides slightly fell from 258 in 2023 to 216 in 2024, but the overall number of violent knife crimes continues to increase.

These numbers show the scale of a problem that many say cannot be tackled without firm policing powers.

A former police officer, who spent his career in Peckham, told The Havering Daily: “Watch the amount of young men losing their life on the streets now,” when informed that stop and search would no longer be used as much.

At The Havering Daily, we have spoken to countless bereaved families who have lost their children to knife crime. Not one of them has ever called for stop and search to be abolished. In fact, every single one has told us the same thing: “If those who murdered my son had been stopped and searched, my son would still be alive.”

Just last week, a youth was arrested in Romford carrying a machete. These weapons are getting bigger — and they only have one purpose: to kill. Knife crime has become a scourge on our streets, and it needs to be tackled urgently in many ways. It is out of control. Scenes of youths fighting with machetes are becoming far too common, and the saddest part is that no one seems shocked anymore.

Yet those in authority often frown on stop and search. Done correctly, it is both vital and life-saving. And yet, here we are once again, justifying its use when so many lives depend on it.

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