GMP actually carried out 42,000 stop searches last year - double the year before

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Greater Manchester Police have revealed officers carried out more than 42,000 stop and search procedures last year, almost double the year before.

It makes good on a promise by Chief Constable to ramp up GMP's use of the tactic. Not long after he was installed, Chief Constable Watson vowed to ramp up the use of the searches in the battle against knife crime. "It is absolutely blindingly obvious in Greater Manchester we just have not been conducting stop and searches in anything like the volume commensurate with a force our size," he said in 2022.

Figures released to the Manchester Evening News by GMP reveal that in 2023 the force carried out 42,573 stop and searches, compared to 24,285 in 2022. Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link. The force suggested in a press release last week that it had carried out almost 9,000 stop searches in 2023 but a spokeswoman later clarified this was merely the number of stop and search procedures which had a 'positive outcome'.

Of the 42,572 stop searches conducted last year, some 8,963 ended in a 'positive outcome' like an arrest or a seizure, said the force.