There is so often an alternative. As we stand in the polling booth, we must decide whether to vote for the incumbent, or for a different candidate.
When surveying the shelves in the supermarket we have a choice, beef, chicken or pork for this Sunday’s roast? But when it comes to police tactics, there is simply no alternative to stop and search.
As the streets of this once-great nation slide relentlessly and headlong into increased lawlessness, with watch robbers, shoplifters, drug dealers, car thieves, burglars, rapists, phone snatchers, knife carrying thugs and others facing very little chance of being arrested, let alone convicted, we the public, our politicians and the media have a very stark choice to make; Are we going to support our police if they decide to try and take back some control over crime, or not?
If the police chiefs of Britain do wake up and acknowledge the blatantly obvious, then in order for their front-line officers to prevent and detect crime, catch wrongdoers, and be the visible presence that the public crave, they will need to carry out stop and search operations, and a lot of them.
If they don’t, then the current and unacceptable levels of unsolved crimes will simply mount, be they crimes of violence or dishonesty, people will become even more reluctant to leave their homes, the economy will suffer, and our cities, towns, villages and hamlets will all continue their journey towards third-world misery.
Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones, who is reading this from the comfort of your armchair in a leafy and lovely part of Surrey, or a delightfully tree-lined part of Cheshire. Maybe your cottage is perched up high on a wild and wonderful valley, and you know nothing of the criminality that I write about, but trust me, at the foot of your valley, where the terraced houses nestle side by side, their lives a drug dealer.
He or she may not operate on the level of Pablo Escobar, but as sure as night follows day, wherever the drugs may be, violence will definitely follow. I did a huge amount of stopping and searching back in my policing days, as did some of the vile racist thugs that I worked alongside.
We had a sergeant who trailed the mantra, ‘Black and white, stop on sight’, as he tried his best to ensure that people with different skin colour did not mix. And just down the road, our colleagues launched Operation Swamp in Brixton, where virtually any person of colour was unceremoniously halted in their tracks and vigorously frisked.
It was April 1981, and we all know how that ended. I agree that many mistakes and terrible miscarriages of justice occurred through unlawful, inconsiderate, biased, and sometimes plain stupid use of the tactic, and that The Metropolitan Police in particular continues to struggle when it comes to matters surrounding race, both internally and externally, but if criminals are to be taken off the streets, together with their weapons and/or contraband, then stop and search must prevail.
It really is not difficult to train officers properly in this tactic. They must know their powers to the point of being word-perfect. That will soon shut the mouths of many of the social media warriors who have their mobile phones permanently at the ready, in order to film and embarrass officers who are uncertain of the relevant laws.
Officers must not be afraid to be firm, robust, if need be, and they must be taught the value of politeness, which should nearly always be their starting point. Self-defence and correct restraint techniques should be a given. This is not rocket science, far from it, and I would want thorough scrutiny of every part of the aforementioned.
I said scrutiny, not the current biased and often politically motived witch-hunting that is today deterring officers from carrying out this important work.
We must all support the police in an unwavering and relentless effort to get this right, and to take it to the streets, now. If we don’t support them, and if they don’t crack this easily resolved nut once and for all, then we will find ourselves chipping-in with our neighbours, to pay private security companies to patrol our streets. Don’t say I didn’t warn you