Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was originally designed to provide exceptional responses to anticipated violence. Section 60 allows police to search any person or vehicle in an authorized area where serious violence is reasonably anticipated. This authorization lasts 24 hours and can be extended by another 24 hours. Although the legislation limits “stop and search” to a specific time and place, it does not require police officers to have any basis of reasonable suspicion for the stop.

The use of the section 60 power has risen hugely since it was introduced, highlighting a clear case of mission creep: from 7,970 section 60 stop and searches in the period 1997/98, the number of stops had risen by 2009/10 to a staggering 118,112. An exceptional power that was originally intended to combat football hooliganism and unruly late-night 'rave' parties has become a routine policing tool.

Black and Asian communities are the main target of these stops. Our analysis shows that during the past 12 months a black person was 29.7 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person under section 60, up from 26.6 the previous year. Asian people were 7.6 times more likely to be stopped and searched, up from 6.4 in 2008/09.

Section 60 has been presented by the police as an important tool in the fight against violence and increasing knife crime. Yet, the data shows that the power is ineffective—only 2 percent of section 60 stop and searches lead to an arrest and less than less than 0.5 percent of section 60 searches led to an arrest for possession of a dangerous weapon, five times fewer than a decade ago.

It is also counterproductive—alienating communities and in particular young people. Stop and search has been identified as playing a motivating role in England's August riots. The independent panel inquiry into the causes of the riots found in its interim report 5 Days in August that stop and search was identified as a major source of discontent with the police; in some instances, these tensions were cited as a motivating factor in the riots and a reason for some of the attacks on the police. Research by the Guardian and the LSE that was partly funded by the Open Society Foundations found that anger at the police was a major cause of the London riots, with 86 percent of rioters citing policing as an important, or very important, factor in causing the disorder.

Mounting anger over the damaging effect of stop and search on black communities have prompted the London Metropolitan Police to announce a scaling back of its use of section 60, which has become a central element of the force’s anti-knife crime strategy. The force's commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, announced that the force will reduce by 50 percent the number of times they authorize an area to be the target of section 60 stops, and would require more intelligence before this power could be deployed in the future.

More generally, police officers would be told to focus less on stopping people for small amounts of cannabis, and instead to focus on those suspected of violent offences or of carrying weapons. Hogan-Howe committed to improve the arrest rate from all stop and searches carried out from 6 percent (at this rate the lowest for an urban force in the UK) to 20 percent overall.

The announcement comes in response to a legal challenges over police use of section 60. Ann Roberts, a 37-year-old special needs assistant, claims it is being used in a racist way against African-Caribbean people. She was stopped and searched last year under section 60, held down by officers on the floor in front of other people, handcuffed and taken to a police station where she was wrongly accused of being a user of class A drugs.

Roberts claims that a disproportionate number of black Londoners are searched, in violation of article 14 of the European convention on human rights, which bans discrimination. In July the High Court agreed she could bring a full legal challenge to section 60.

Section 60 is analogous to Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which also allowed officers to search individuals in a defined area without reasonable suspicion. Section 44 was struck down by the European Court of Human Rights in January 2010. The Court found that there was a clear risk of arbitrariness in granting such broad discretion to police offices. They ruled that continued use of these powers would interfere with the right to private life, leading to humiliation and embarrassment. The court was especially concerned about the impact of these powers on ethnic minorities, especially the black and Asian communities.

The Met’s decision to scale back stops and the Roberts' legal challenge both hold lessons for other European countries that grant police the power to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion. In the Netherlands, “preventative searches” allow searches to take place in designated areas without reasonable suspicion, a tactic recently highlighted as a cause for concern by the national ombudsman. Similarly, in Denmark Section 6 of the Police Activities Act enables the police to establish so called “stop and search zones” in public areas, within which the police can stop any persons to search for weapons. The abuse of these searches were one of the factors in the riots that took place in Copenhagen in 2008 and 2009.

We believe there are not sufficient safeguards in place for the use of section 60 to ensure that the interference with individuals' personal integrity and liberty that such searches entail is proportionate and in accordance with the law. We hope the Home Secretary, Theresa May, will pre-empt the legal challenge and move to amend the law on section 60, increasing safeguards and strict criteria, including judicial authorization, before the power can be mobilized. Unfortunately, the Metropolitan Police’s announcement did not mention any new measures to tackle the problem of racial disproportionality.

But we must still welcome Hogan-Howe’s announcement. It is highly symbolic to have a senior police officer publicly recognize that there is a problem, and commit to change. We will have to wait to see if change does come. In the meantime, we urge the Home Secretary and other police forces around Europe to recognize that un-curtailed stop and search powers risk damaging both communities and effective policing.

Yet this report’s recommendations contrast sharply with Scarman’s call for serious reforms; it seems unlikely that the current UK government will pay any heed to the lackluster suggestion that police work more closely with communities. Instead, David Cameron, the UK prime minister, and his coalition, are busily dismantling key aspects of the protections established after Scarman’s inquiry.

The panel's report identifies current police "stop and search" practices—embraced by the police as a way of tackling knife crime in particular—as one of the factors behind last summer’s riots.  In many of the areas the inquiry visited, stop and search was identified as a major source of discontent with the police. In some instances, these tensions were cited as a motivating factor in the riots and a reason for some of the attacks on the police.

The report finds that there was "no single cause" for the disturbances. It notes that while the catalyst for the initial riots in the London suburb of Tottenham was the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan, the "sole trigger" for the violent disturbances elsewhere was the perception that police were not in control, and that "the streets were there for the taking."  It makes 11 key recommendations, warning that "while deprivation is not an excuse for criminal behavior, we must seek to tackle the underlying causes of the riots, or they will happen again.”

The recommendation on stop and search, however, is extremely anodyne. It simply calls “on the police to work with communities and across forces to improve the way in which stop and search is undertaken.” On the questions of how exactly this might be done, and through what mechanisms, the report is completely silent.

Cynicism about likely impact of this hortatory encouragement is fed by recent government moves which have allowed British police forces to end all record keeping on "stop and accounts" (stops that do not lead to searches), and drastically cutting back on how stop and search is recorded. This has undermined accountability, and taken away the data that would be needed to address the disproportionate use of these powers against black and Asian people.

After the Scarman report, the recording of stop and search was first introduced by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in 1984 (later extended to record stop and account). The data generated provided the evidence of ethnic profiling by British police, but also provided evidence for the development of measures to address the problem.  Sustaining and extending these good practices has always proved difficult, as is clear from the ongoing disproportionality the data reveals; nonetheless, without data, good practices will be hard to target and even harder to evaluate.

New regulations introduced in March now give police forces the discretion to choose whether or not to record stop and accounts —and most appear to have chosen not to. Many have chosen to record less information on stop and search too. As a result, it will be harder to assess how effectively stop and search is being used—whether it is targeting the right places and people. It will be harder also to assess the validity of allegations of harassment and abuse.

The government claims to be giving local communities a greater say in how they are policed through electing local Police and Crime Commissioners, but at the same time it is removing the information needed for local accountability.

The report does cite the London Metropolitan Police Services’ commitment to keep recording stop and account as an example of good practice. But it fails to note that this was a legal requirement until a few months ago and that other forces, including that with the worst disproportionality and where serious rioting broke out – the West Midlands Police – are dropping recording of stop and account entirely.

Stop and search is deeply contentious and profoundly shapes peoples' attitudes towards the police. Young people feel targeted, embarrassed, and humiliated by the experience of repeat stop and search encounters. Stop and search is grossly disproportionate, undermining public assessments of police  fairness and as a result jeopardizing public support and cooperation for the police. Recent years have seen a substantial increase in the overall use of stop and search, as well as an expansion of powers that allow stops without there being any individual suspicion. And yet, only one in ten stop and searches leads to an arrest and a much smaller proportion leads to charge and conviction.

The inquiry notes that many of those spoken to expressed support for the use of stop and search, particularly for tackling knife crime, there was widespread discontent with how stop and search was targeted and unprofessional contact. The inquiry shows that there are no “trade off” between respecting civil liberties and equality and effective community safety.

The panel argues that “if searches are insufficiently targeted and not carried out professionally, there is a risk that the consensus that has built up around stop and search is eroded." But it also says that it "has heard from police forces who feel they have been very successful in building and maintaining confidence around stop and search; best practice should be shared across forces to ensure standards are high.”

This accepts too readily the assurances given by the police that are not born out in stop and search practice or the data. In addition, it ignores the lived realities of many individuals and communities. There is evidence that for many, the "consensus" around the use of stop and search was broken long ago and trust and confidence has already been eroded.

The solution needs to be much greater than asking the police to work with communities.

The Government must publicly acknowledge the problem of ethnic profiling by the police,  and set targets for the reduction of disproportionality and increasing effectiveness and a timeline for achieving this goal. They must conduct an independent review into the legal framework of exceptional stop and search powers, and amend the law rather than waiting for legal challenges. The government and police forces must reintroduce the requirement to fully record stops under all legal powers; and put mechanisms in place to ensure that there is effective oversight of the data and local community monitoring.

The Scarman report led to profound changes in laws governing policing in England and Wales through the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. What we need is similarly strong recommendations from the final report of this inquiry that leads to meaningful and sustained change rather than a restatement of the problem. Otherwise, we will be back in this same position in another generation.

It is clear that a serious public inquiry is needed to examine the causes of the unrest, how events unfolded, and the police response.  The underlying causes are without doubt multi-faceted, influenced by public policy, social inequality and economic failure. But it must also be remembered that these events were triggered by the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan in Tottenham in north London, a neighborhood that has seen years of simmering tensions between locals and police.

History should not be forgotten. The Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham in 1985 began after Cynthia Jarrett, an African-Caribbean woman, died of a stroke during a police search of her home. The riot at the Broadwater Farm public housing estate erupted a week after riots in Brixton in South London that followed the shooting of a black woman during a police search. 2011 marks the 30 anniversary of the previous Brixton protests when in April 1981, anger over a massive stop-and-search operation called “Swamp 81” erupted into urban unrest that then spread to other large cities in England that had experienced similar policing tactics.

The unrest and looting last week in London and elsewhere were not characterized by race and, indeed, the policing of poor, white communities often generates similar discontent. Incidents such as the shooting of Duggan are a common catalyst for reactions that reflect the less visible but far more common encounters young people have with police in the shape of regular "stop-and-search" checks. While common, stop and search is deeply contentious and profoundly shapes peoples' attitudes towards the police, particularly among the young.

Since 2005, the UK police have massively increased their use of stop and search and in particular, exceptional stop and search powers under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (introduced to deal with football hooligans and the threat of serious violence) allows police to search anyone in a designated area without any specific grounds for suspicion. From 2005 to the latest figures on 2010, the use of Section 60 has risen more than 300 percent.  It appears that in some areas, police use this power on an almost-permanent basis in response to low-level disorder. And these stops and searches tend to discriminate more than those stops under legislation that requires police to have reasonable suspicion for a stop.  While the overall number of Section 60 stops increased by 300 percent, stops and searches of black people rose by more than 650 percent.

Young people feel targeted, embarrassed, humiliated by the experience of repeat stop and search encounters. Yet the use of Section 60 is not making young people safer. Only two out of every 100 searches conducted under this power lead to an arrest (fewer are charged and even fewer convicted) and only 0.5 percent of these arrests are for knife offenses—the most common rationale for the use of Section 60 today. (Knife crime has gone down across London, but both in areas where Section 60 is not used as well as where it is.)

In this context, recent UK government reforms that drastically cut back the monitoring of stop and search procedures appear appallingly short-sighted. Starting this year, police forces can choose whether or not to record stops that do not lead to searches—and most appear to have chosen not to. As a result, it will be harder to assess how effectively stop and search is being used—whether it is targeting the right places and people. It will he harder also to assess the validity of allegations of harassment and abuse. The government claims to be giving local communities a greater say in how they are policed, but at the same time it is removing the information needed  for  local accountability.

No one condones the opportunistic looting and violence of the last week.  But we must not ignore real grievances. The same thinking and behavior that got us into the situation will not get us out. We need more, not less accountability. We need police tactics that enhance police legitimacy and build public trust. Knee-jerk reactions about increasing police powers and resources are misguided. Resources are not irrelevant; but more important, is whether they are used in a fair and effective manner. The police waste huge amounts of time and money stopping thousands of people for no good reason, with little result apart from alienating large sections of our society.

Thirty years ago, the Scarman inquiry into the Brixton disorder described it as "essentially an outburst of anger and resentment by young black people against the police" and emphasized the centrality of public 'consent' in securing legitimacy for policing. The Scarman report led to profound changes in laws governing policing in England and Wales through the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. A similar inquiry is needed now, one that must address not just what happened and why, but also broader issues of fairness, and how to rebuild fractured police-community relations.

Early this month, parliament in the UK agreed to drastically cut the police recording of stops and stop-searches. Political expediency was the name of the game, not efficiency or safety, and certainly not fairness or equality.

The government’s proposal, which will now become policy, is based on shaky math. Nick Herbert, Minister of Justice for Policing and Criminal Justice, claims that cutting all recording of stop and account will save 450,000 hours of police time per year and reducing the recording of stop and search will save another 300,000 officer hours a year. This conjures up visions of officers, freed of red tape, getting on with the real job of fighting crime.

Sound good? The trouble is the figures don't add up and the claims are simply bogus. Worse, they ignore the fact that such cuts will reduce police accountability and damage community relations at a time when social tensions are likely to be exacerbated by deep public spending cuts.

When we break down the figures, it is clear that government estimates hugely exaggerate the time taken to record police stops. On average police officers conduct roughly two recorded stop searches or stop and accounts per month.  Even if we accept the government’s grossly inflated estimates of how long recording takes, the proposed changes would save individual officers an average of  around half an hour a month—or 7 minutes a week.  Our own estimates suggest a figure of less than half this. While actual savings promise to be minimal, the costs for policing, in terms of lost public trust and confidence, may prove high. Added to which, increasing numbers of forces are introducing hand-held devices to record stops which cut paperwork while preserving accountability.

The proposed changes will remove five pieces of information from stop and search forms, including name and address of the person stopped; outcome of the stop (fixed penalty notices, arrest, etc); and any injury caused. Without this data, it will be much harder for the police and communities to determine how effectively stop and search is being used; whether it is targeting the right places and people; and to assess the validity of allegations of harassment and abuse.

Take the case of Ken Hinds, who won a judgment against the British Transport Police last year after being arrested for observing a youth getting arrested. It later emerged that despite his work with police to tackle gang violence and monitor stop and search practices, Hinds had been stopped himself over 100 times in the last twenty years. If name data is dropped from the forms it will be impossible to verify experiences like this.

The proposed reforms ignore critical lessons from the recent past.  The recording of stop and account has been required since 2005 and was introduced because of the clear community concerns about the abuse of stops that emerged from the Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. These concerns have not gone away. Only last year, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that, nationally, black people were at least six times more likely and Asian people around twice as likely to be stopped and searched as white people.

For some, the most persuasive evidence that the government has got it wrong may come from the police themselves. Several police forces, including the London Metropolitan Police Service—the biggest user of stop and search nationwide—have decided to keep using the full stop search form with all the information and hold a wide public consultation on the recording of stop and account. This decision recognizes the importance of community scrutiny of stop and search and the operational value of stop data. It also highlights the politically motivated nature of the proposals.

With only around one-in-ten stop searches ending in arrest there is plenty of room for efficiency savings through better use of the power. This can be achieved by ending unfair and unproductive stops and searches of black and Asian people and by ensuring fewer, but more effective, interventions. Detailed stop data is crucial to this end because it provides the basis for rigorous oversight and scrutiny, which increases both fairness and effectiveness.

The proposals on stop and search are part of the Government’s "localism agenda," but while claiming to give local communities a greater say in how they are policed, ministers are curtailing the information that is required to achieve this. It is also telling that the proposals are being pushed through without the normal public consultation. It is also worth recalling that the PACE was introduced precisely to end the "postcode lottery" that saw wildly varied powers and recording standards used by police forces across the country. Minimum standards provide a basic guarantee and the equalities agenda should not be abandoned in the name of local control.

In the current climate of deep public spending cuts, nobody, least of all government ministers, can afford to be complacent about trust and confidence in the police. What is required is more, not less, public accountability. While it is encouraging that some police forces are planning to maintain their recording of stop and search, the government should follow their lead and reverse this ill-conceived reform, which threatens to do real damage to police-community relations.

The authors are members of the group StopWatch, which works to ensure fair and accountable stop and search. It was profiled in the Guardian last fall.