THE admission by Police Scotland as to 500,000 incidences of stop and search over the past nine months should be of some concern to both the Scottish public and the vast number of dedicated police officers ("Half a million Scots searched by police", The Herald, January 16).
There is no vindication of the stop-and-search practice despite a 20% success.
Most citizens appreciate the police face difficult and hazardous encounters in their daily routine. Spiralling figures of stop and search do nothing in fostering police/public relations. Indeed, the very phrase stop and search is confrontational and must surely be predicated with suspicion of criminal intent.
Perhaps "stop and assist" should be the first overture with the suspect as opposed to a mandatory "shake down and search" presumably often conducted in full public view. This practice must cease forthwith before the former welcome sight of officers on the beat becomes alien to our streets.
Allan C Steele,
22 Forres Avenue, Giffnock.
I NOTE that Police Scotland has just announced its stop-and-search results. Of some half a million searches about 20% seem to have been positive.
As all such searches have to stem from reasonable suspicion or with the agreement of the person being searched and as, in so much as I understand it, all such police activity is intelligence-led, how does one explain the near-400,000 negative searches?
Ian McNeish,
2 Whitehill Place,
Stirling.
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