Arrests for Notifiable Offences and the Operation of Certain Police Powers Under PACE: England and Wales, 2001/02

• NCJ Number: 197855
• Author(s): Margaret Ayres; Dave Perry; Paul Hayward
• Date Published: November 2002
• Length: 35 pages
• Sale Source: Great Britain Home Office Research Development and Statistics Directorate
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Note: Downloaded November 11, 2002

Annotation

This report offers 2001 and 2002 statistics concerning arrests in England and Wales for notifiable offenses and the operation of police powers under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984.

Abstract

In 1984, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) was implemented in England and Wales to regulate stops and searches of persons or vehicles, road checks, detention of persons, and intimate searches of persons. This report presents statistical data from fiscal year 2001 and 2002 for notifiable arrests and the operation of PACE. According to these records, 713,000 people and 27,000 vehicles were stopped and searched, representing a 4 percent increase over 2000-2001. Thirteen percent of these searches ended in an arrest, the same as 2000-2001. Approximately 1,272,000 people were arrested for notifiable offenses, up 1 percent from 2000-2001. Furthermore, while the arrests of males remained the same from 2000-2001, with 1,066,300 men arrested, female arrests increased 4 percent from 2000-2001 to 7,600. These statistics take into account changes in police recording practices. The authors compared 2000 data from the British Crime Survey and found that while the police reported 825,356 stops and searches, the BCS estimated 1,102,000 stops and searches were conducted. The authors caution that the differences may be due to sampling error with BCS.