Criminology & Criminal Justice: (Qs) What capacity do the police have to reduce crime?

The police forces in the United Kingdom exist for the protection of members of the public from dangerous situations and persons. The police are answerable, ultimately, to Parliament, and their powers are therefore limited. As will be seen, police action may now find itself the subject of judicial review. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) overhauled the nature of police powers to reduce crime, and various other statutes and cases have amended these powers incrementally. When assessing the powers of the police to reduce crime, it should always be qualified by the fact that the police are themselves a statutory body, deriving their authority from powers conferred upon them by Parliament. What are these powers, and how have they come about?

The Home Secretary in 1984, Leon Brittan, who was responsible for introducing PACE 1984, identified several reasons why the new statute was necessary. ‘First’, he stated in Parliament, ‘the present state of the law is unclear and contains many indefensible anomalies. Secondly, the police need to have adequate and clear powers to conduct the fight against crime on our behalf and the public need to have proper safeguards against any abuse of such powers if they are to have any confidence in the police.’ Such was the significance of the Bill, however, that Parliament was not prepared simply to accept what Brittan and Thatcher’s Government offered them. Much Parliamentary time was spent debating the bill, and it was a second version that actually passed. As Parpworth points out, however, the Actis not a codification of police powers. It does, however, ‘form the basis of many of the powers exercised by the police on a daily basis.’

PACE 1984, then, is a highly significant Act in that it provides the basis for many of the police’s powers. As well as the Act itself, sections 60 and 66 require the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice in connection with the exercising of various powers. So far, five such codes have been issued. These relate to the important powers of police to stop and search (Code A), searching premises and the seizure of property (Code B), detention, treatment and the questioning of suspects (Code C), identification matters (Code D), and tape-recording interviews with suspects (Code E). These codes, and any future ones which may be issued, find their main purpose in offering police officers further guidance on the proper exercise of powers granted to them under PACE 1984. Breach of these codes does not render the offending officer liable to charges (civil or criminal), nor does it necessarily lead to disciplinary proceedings (now that section 67(8) has been repealed).

Under PACE 1984, and subject to the appropriate Codes of Practice, what powers do the police actually have in the fight against crime? Perhaps the most significant is the power of stop and search (subject to Code A). as Hannibal and Mountford point out, these are so-called ‘general powers’, which can be used in a wide range of situations.’ This is, then, one of the most significant powers as it can be utilised at any stage of an investigation, so long as there is a suspicion of involvement in a criminal offence. Under section of the Act, the stop and search must be in connection with stolen or prohibited articles. This is supplemented by paragraph 1.1 of Code A which states that the power must be used ‘fairly, responsibly, and with respect for those being searched and without unlawful discrimination.’ A search can and will be deemed unlawful if the requirements of the Act are not complied with, as was shown in the case of Osman v Southwark Crown Court. Finally the power to stop and search must be exercised in accordance with the Human Rights Act 1998, which brought the European Convention on Human Rights into force. Article 5 of this guarantees the right to liberty and security of the person.

Perhaps the single most important power of the police in the fight to reduce crime is the power of arrest. The authority for this power comes from a variety of sources, the most significant of which is under a warrant for arrest, granted under section 1 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980. Viscount Dilhorne, in the case of Spicer v Holt, stated that ‘arrest is an ordinary English word Whether or not a person has been arrested depends not on the legality of the arrest but on whether he has been deprived of his liberty to go where he pleases.’ The important factor about the power of arrest is that it is exercised in accordance with an authority derived from some source. An example of another source is sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Public Order Act 1984, where an officer can exercise a power of arrest where he reasonably believes an offence is being committed under the relevant section. Finally, of course, PACE 1984 itself confers a power of arrest under section 24, which confers a general power of arrest without warrant in respect of ‘arrest able offences’.

Finally, there are a number of, perhaps, lesser powers which the police enjoy, which may at times and in certain circumstances be useful. These include the power to enter property (a power which is limited by the famous eighteenth century case of Entick v Carrington), and a general power of seizure (under section 19 of PACE).
There are, then, a range of powers available to the police in order for them to reduce crime. These powers originate from a number of different sources, and are regulated either by statute, or in cases of alleged misuse of the power, through the mechanism of judicial review according to the so-called Wednesbury principles (such as proportionality and legality, as laid down in the case of Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Statutes
Human Rights Act 1998
Magistrates’ Court Act 1980
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
PACE 1984 Codes of Practice
Public Order Act 1984
Cases
Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223
Entick v Carrington (1765) 2 Wills 275
Osman v Southwark Crown Court (1999)
Spicer v Holt [1977] AC 987
Secondary sources
Bowling, B., and Foster, J., ‘Policing and the Police’, in Macguire et al (Eds), Oxford Handbook of Criminology (Oxford, 2002)
Bowling, B., and Phillips, A., ‘Policing Ethnic Minorities’, in Newburn, T. (Ed), Handbook of Policing (Willan, 2003)
Hannibal, M., and Mountford, L., Criminal Litigation (Oxford, 2005)
Hansard, HC vol 48
Leyland, P., and Woods, T., Administrative Law (Oxford, 2002)
Parpworth, N., Constitutional and Administrative Law (LexisNexis, 2004)

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