Nottinghamshire Police is one of two forces in the country involved in a pilot scheme where all stop and search information is to be made public.
All information will be presented via maps on the police.uk website, fully accessible to any member of the public.
Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced in August that measures would be taken to improve the way police use stop and search powers.
She hopes that in future, all forces will have a greater level of transparency regarding stop and search if their data is published.
“The public should be involved with police scrutiny – I want my police force to do a good job”
West Mercia and Nottinghamshire Police are piloting the scheme, to establish what information is important to the public and the best way to display the data.
Second year law student, George Hartley, said: “The public should be involved with police scrutiny – I want my police force to do a good job, and that will only be the case if the public can access their data and essentially police the police force”.
A spokesperson for Nottinghamshire Police told Impact that the force “had already done a lot of work around Stop and Search in terms of best practice and training and can be seen to be leading the way around this”.
“It will result in more transparency, and in today’s society we need more transparency”
“We were also one of the first forces to sign up to the national best use of stop and search scheme”, she said.
A third year business student commented: “I think it is good that we are doing this because it will result in more transparency, and in today’s society we need more transparency”.
“It will be useful to see where the police tend to stop people as this may give me a clearer idea of the parts of the city that are safe and which I should avoid”
Rachel Morgan, a second year architecture student also commented: “This sounds like a good thing. It will be useful to see where the police tend to stop people as this may give me a clearer idea of the parts of the city that are safe and which I should avoid”
The Nottinghamshire Police spokesperson described the change as “a positive step for forces”.
“Having details published will allow for greater accountability and scrutiny and hopefully give the public more confidence in our use of these powers”, she continued.
The start date for the pilot scheme has yet to be announced.
Beth Rowland
Image: Maja Kucova via flickr
