Knife crime drive made easier

[18 September 2008]

Police working in knife crime hot-spots will get new powers, to reduce red tape when stopping people on the street for informal questioning.

Officers will no longer have to fill out lengthy 'stop and account' forms. Officers in ten 'Tackling Knives Action Programme' areas, including London and Manchester, will be affected from the end of October. The Home Office is also looking to introduce a second scheme, which will reduce the forms needed to record actual crimes. According to ministers, cutting red tape will save officers hundreds of thousands of man hours every year.

Many officers have found the most controversial paperwork to be that relating to stopping someone and asking them to account for their behaviour. The forms were introduced after Stephen Lawrence's murder, to help police monitor if they were stopping too many minority groups. Instead, officers will now radio in the subject's ethnicity and give them a card which explains how they should complain if they feel they have been unfairly treated. Staffordshire Police piloted the scheme and found that the time taken to record a crime was cut from 15 minutes to just two minutes.

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