Stop and search is racial profiling, rights body says

London: Government plans allowing police to stop people on the grounds of skin colour are discriminatory and amount to racial profiling, the official equalities body has warned ministers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission wants the plans dropped and has warned there is a high risk that British and European laws will be broken, in a letter seen by the Guardian.

Serving officers represented by the Black Police Association have also damned the plans as a "concession to racism" as opposition to the measures intensifies.

The issue threatens to test the credibility of Conservative claims to be an inclusive party and drag the government into a dispute over race.

The Home Office says it intends to press ahead and introduce the guidance allowing race to be taken into account when a police officer stops someone if it is judged to be relevant. It says race cannot be the sole reason for deciding to conduct a search, and the government insists the new measures will "protect civil liberties".

The issue of the police stop-and-search powers is particularly controversial because officers are more likely to target a minority ethnic person than someone who is white. African-Caribbean people are already at least six times more likely to be stopped than white people under powers where an officer has reasonable suspicion to carry out a search.

Reasonable suspicion

The Home Office proposals cover stops where officers do not require reasonable suspicion, a power they have under section 60 of the Public Order Act, meaning police have maximum discretion. For these stops black people are 26 times more likely than white people to be targeted. Critics say this is blatant discrimination.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The proposed new guidelines make clear that ethnicity may not be used as the sole basis for stopping and searching anyone under section 60."

But in its letter to the government, the commission said: "We consider there is a significant risk that this provision will result in race discrimination."

It adds there is a "high risk" it may lead to "a degree of racial profiling".

The commission says provisions on freedom from state intrusion and discrimination are likely to be broken unless the government backs down: "There is a high risk these powers would breach article eight, and or 14 of the European convention on human rights, and section 29 of the Equality Act 2010."

The Home Office plans to allow police to search people where there is no eyewitness description are also causing alarm.

The measure will allow descriptions taken from CCTV images to be used. But the commission and some police officers say the Home Office proposal is too widely drawn and may allow stops on the basis of "outright racial prejudice or hatred".

Opposition also comes in a letter from the Black Police Association, and signed by Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen was killed by racists.