Reducing Ethnic Profiling in the European Union - Open Society ...

UNITED KINGDOMMonitoring the Quality of Encounters by the Hertfordshire Constabulary 206In 2007, the Hertfordshire Constabulary introduced stop forms that include a sectionto record the quality of the encounter. At the end of a stop-and-search encounter,officers are required to ask the person stopped:“Thinking about the experience of being stopped by your local police on this occasion,which of the following do you agree with:• I understand the reason I was stopped. Yes/No• During the stop, I was treated professionally, respectfully and with dignity. Yes/NoPlease sign.”Introducing the questions on the stop form means that the officer is aware that hewill have to ask about the quality of the encounter, creating a focus on more professionalconduct. The questions are also intended to empower the public and reinforcethe notion of policing as a public service. The requirement that officers ask membersof the public to rate their satisfaction with the stop has changed officers’ thinking andbehavior. It also provides supervisors with further means to monitor officers’ stops,including completion rates of the forms.People are generally most satisfied with stops that result from planned operations,probably because these are based on intelligence and officers are briefed beforehand,enabling them to provide full explanations of why they are conducting stops.Stops conducted in response to an incident—such as a witness reporting “suspiciousbehavior,” for example—had the lowest satisfaction ratings. This may be due to thelimited and rapidly changing information available to officers, leading to a poorerexplanation of the reasons for the stop.Monitoring of the data showed that black people and young people were least likely tobe asked about their treatment and most likely to record negative experiences whenasked. Officers who were most likely to focus their stops on ethnic minorities werealso least likely to complete the stop forms.Based on the Hertfordshire experience, quality control questions have since beenincluded in the stop forms used by some other UK police forces. The Suffolk Constabularyincludes the same quality questions. (Please see Appendix A for the Suffolk stopform.) When “no” is ticked for either question or the form has not been signed, thepolice send a letter to the person who was stopped and searched, asking him aboutthe quality of the interaction and giving him the contact information of an independentreporting center where he can make a complaint if dissatisfied with the encounter.REDUCING ETHNIC PROFILING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 121