Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland

John Topping; Ben Bradford

doi:10.1177/1748895818800742

Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland

John Topping^*, Ben Bradford

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

694 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Police stop and search practices have been subject to voluminous debate for over forty years in the United Kingdom. Yet critical debate related to the use of ‘everyday’ stop and search powers by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has, despite the hyper-accountable policing system of Northern Ireland, been marked by its absence. This paper presents the first ever analysis of PSNI’s use of PACE-type powers - currently used at a higher rate and with poorer outcomes compared to the rest of the U.K. While it can only be considered as an elusive power, about which detailed research evidence is markedly lacking, stop and search in Northern Ireland seems to serve as a classificatory tool for PSNI to control mainly young, socio-economically marginal male populations. The paper provides new theoretical insight into stop and search as a simultaneous overt and covert practice, and speaks to wider issues of mundane police power – and practice – within highly contested and politically fractured contexts.

Original language	English
Journal	Criminology and Criminal Justice
Early online date	12 Sep 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818800742 https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895818800742
Publication status	Early online date - 12 Sep 2018

Bibliographical note

John Topping is a lecturer in criminology at Queen’s University, Belfast and Fellow of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. His research interests centre around police reform, practice, and accountability, along with stop and search and public order policing. He has over a decade of research and consultancy experiences with all the policing institutions in Northern Ireland and is currently Chairperson of Community Restorative Justice Ireland.

Ben Bradford is Director of the Institute for Global City Policing at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science. His research interests include procedural justice theory, public trust, and police legitimacy. His book, Stop and Search and Police Legitimacy, was published in 2017; he is also editor, along with Beatrice Jauregui, Ian Loader and Jonny Steinberg, of the SAGE Handbook of Global Policing (2016).

Keywords

policing
Police Service of Northern Ireland
Stop and search
social control
Children's Rights
police powers
police practice

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Law

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Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland
© 2018 The Authors. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
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Cite this

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Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this

Now you see it, now you don’t: On the (in)visibility of police stop and search in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Activities

Press/Media

Profiles

Research output

Cite this