A scheme which gives police powers to stop and search previous offenders without suspicion has been shrouded in secrecy, charities have warned.
Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) were introduced by the Conservative government in a two-year pilot in April 2023 in a bid to crack down on knife crime.
Anyone convicted of carrying a knife or who “ought to have known” someone else was carrying a knife, whether or not the weapon was actually used, can be issued with an SVRO by the courts.
Under an order, which can last between six months and two years, individuals are subject to police stop and search in any public place, on any number of occasions, without the need for reasonable suspicion.
However, researchers have hit out at the lack of transparency over the pilot, which is being tested in Merseyside, West Midlands, Sussex and Thames Valley, after Freedom of Information requests for details of all orders issued and the demographic of recipients were rejected.
A joint briefing from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the charity StopWatch, due to be published later this week, called for candour and warned the orders appear to “do more harm than good” to marginalised communities, who are more already more likely to be stopped and searched by police.
Leroy Logan, a founding member of the Black Police Association, warned that suspicion-less stop and search is tantamount to a return to 1970s-style policing.
Analysis of annual Home Office stop and search figures showed only 66 searches took place under SVRO powers in the first year of the pilot. None of these searches led to the discovery of weapons.
The paper has called for the Labour government, which has pledged to halve knife crime in a decade, to focus on more effective interventions rather than “continue with measures that, while giving the impression of being decisive, ultimately fall very short.”
Co-author of the briefing Helen Mills, head of programmes at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said: “We’ve always been sceptical about this power and how it will work. The relatively few searches to date seems to confirm that.
“Violence reduction is too important an ambition for governments not to match the attention-grabbing claims with which new powers are introduced with transparency about what actually happens next.”
Habib Kadiri, the executive director of Stopwatch, added: “In exercising powers that appear to do more harm than good to marginalised communities, the police risk damaging their already poor public reputation even further.
“SVROs inherently lack transparency, efficacy, and accountability. The power should be repealed.”
Mr Logan, chair of Transition to Adulthood Alliance at the Barrow Cadbury Trust and former Metropolitan Police Superintendent, said: “For many years the police have fooled themselves into the notion they can arrest and/or stop and search their way towards solving the issues of community violence. If that was the case, these issues would have been solved many years ago.
“Despite these flaws in their thinking, police have doubled down by bringing in even more draconian enforcement tactics, with less transparency and accountability; in fact they continuously gaslight critical friends and the wider public that their tactics are necessary and proportionate.
“For example, suspicion-less stop and search is tantamount to bringing back the pre PACE ‘Sus Law’ 2.0, thus bringing back policing to a 1970s model. The public won’t stand for it, and I hope the new Home Secretary won’t either.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We know more must be done to tackle knife crime, which devastates lives. That is why this government has committed to halving knife crime over the next decade.
“The Serious Violence Reduction Orders pilot, will conclude in April 2025 and a report will be laid in Parliament on the operation of the pilot if it is to be rolled out nationally.”
