Dudley police chief: Stop and search powers 'vital' to keep our streets safe

Dudley police commander Sally Bourner was speaking following Prime Minister Boris Johnson's controversial announcement this week of an extension of blanket stop and search powers that allow police to challenge people without reasonable suspicion.

More than 8,000 officers will now be able to impose section 60 laws on areas where they think violence could break out after the government lifted restrictions on their use.

The move has been criticised for potentially provoking unrest but Chief Superintendent Bourner maintained it was "a really important operational tactic used wisely, with a clear purpose, and in an intelligence-led way."

Stop and search powers also provide officers with an opportunity to talk to people on a human level, said the 51-year-old officer who took up her post exactly a year ago.

"When we stop people, it's a chance to build a relationship with people who may be vulnerable, who may be involved in crime, may be involved in violence, and to actually have a conversation to try and help them.

"The humanity officers show is as important as the use for the power itself," she said.

"We train and develop people, and do a lot of work with young people, which we feed back to our officers, about the use of stop and search.

"There are really significant parameters around when and how we can use it, and how we do that is really important.

"In Dudley we have stop and search scrutiny panels bringing together people from across our communities, including young people.

"We share data and information around our use of stop-and-search to enable them to scrutinise us and give feedback to help us understand the impact that it has."

In the chief's first year, offending has remained relatively stable and Dudley can continue to boast of being the safest borough in the West Midlands.

Reflecting on her first 12 months in the role, Ch Supt Bourner was enthusiastic about her new patch and optimistic about its future, with £1 billion investment heading its way and new developments at Dudley College, the Black Country Living Museum, a new music college at Brierley Hill and the extension of the Midland Metro.

"It's a place that is filled with really kind, proud, warm friendly people," she said.

And she renewed her appeal for the public to be the force's "eyes and ears", in particular, to get involved in Street Watch, a scheme where residents volunteer to keep an active look-out and report anything suspicious in their neighbourhoods. They would not be vigilantes but good citizens who were properly trained and supervised, she stressed.

She also asked that people relieve the strain on back-office staff by contacting police officers with non-emergency issues via the force's webchat portal, open between 8am and midnight, launched last year. The service was staffed by "real people", not robots, she added.

Calls to the 101 service have fallen in recent months as use of the webchat facility increases "which is what we want," she said.