Stop & Search
From 1 April 2005, the Police have been required to record every "Stop" and "Stop and Search" they carry out.
Stop and Search - A 'Stop and Search' is when a police officer stops you in a public place and searches you, your clothes and anything you might be carrying.
Stop - You can also be stopped and questioned, but if you are not physically searched, this is only a 'Stop'.
Not everything is a Stop - There are plenty of occasions when you might talk to police, and most of these do not qualify as either a 'Stop' or 'Stop and Search'. You have not been officially 'Stopped' if, for example:
- You stop an officer to ask for directions or information
- You have witnessed a crime and are questioned about it to establish the background to the incident
- You have been in an area where a crime recently occurred and are questioned about what you might have seen
If you are stopped and searched by the police, you will be issued with a form that records details of the encounter and the reason why you were stopped or stopped and searched. For more information visit our Know Your Rights page.
Cheshire Constabulary is constantly striving to provide a better service to all members of the community and this recording process will assist the force in ensuring that it continues to do so.
Annual Stop and Search data can be found in the Annual Stops Data Report
For further information about stop and search, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page or click on the links at the bottom of this page.
If you would like to make a complaint about your stop and search experience visit our How to make a complaint page for more information.
The Authority recently carried out some work to understand how young people felt about their Stop encounters. Read the Stop and Search Consultation report to find out what they said.
Stop and Account
If you are stopped (but not searched) by the police will not now have to give any personal information e.g. name and address, and the officer will not have to fill out a long form, therefore saving everybody time!
To ensure accountability of the police, the officer will still need to let the person stopped know who they are (by giving them a receipt with their details). The ethnic background of the person stopped will still be recorded so that we can ensure that the police are using their powers fairly.
So that we can monitor peoples experiences of these changes we have developed a survey. If you have been stopped, please take a few minutes to complete the following survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VWhiR3K68RO8nikJop1FCg_3d_3d.
If you would like to make a complaint about your experience, please visit our How to make a complaint page.
Association of Police Authorities - 'Know Your Rights'
The Association of Police Authorities (APA) has more information in many different languages.You can listen to an audio version of the Stop and search 'Know Your Rights' information APA website
'Stop & Search' video
You can watch video footage of rap group Unified Voice's 'Stop & Search' rap on you tube.
Please click here to watch Unified Voice's 'Stop & Search' rap.
Other useful links
