West Midlands Police is to scale back its use of controversial stop and search powers.
Home Secretary Theresa May said the technique was being misused so often across the country that it was damaging relations between the public and police.
The force pledged to restrict its use of “section 60” powers, which allow people to be stopped without grounds for suspicion in situations where serious violence is anticipated.
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It will also record all stop and search outcomes to measure how many lead to an arrest and introduce a community complaints trigger.
Chief Supt Rick Burgess, force lead for stop and search, said: “West Midlands Police has worked extremely hard to achieve the significant improvements we have made to the way in which we use stop and search.
“We are using this essential power in a proportionate and lawful manner which is helping us to protect the public from criminals.”
Mrs May said all 43 police forces in England and Wales had signed up to the shake-up and 24, including the West Midlands, had immediately introduced the new measures.
The changes were introduced after Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found 27 per cent of stop and searches did not satisfy the requirement that there be “reasonable grounds for suspicion”.
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Last year locals demanded action on the “clear inequalities” highlighted in stop and searches involving West Midlands Police.
Coun Waseem Zaffar, then chairman of the city council’s social cohesion and community safety watchdog committee, was told that young black men in Birmingham were 28 times more likely to be stopped than young white men.
Young Asian men were 8.7 times more likely to be stopped.
But just six per cent of stops led to arrests, it was said.
Mrs May said: “Nobody wins when stop and search is misused, it can be an enormous waste of police time and damage the relationship between the public and police.
“That is why I am delighted West Midlands Police will from today reform their use of stop and search powers under the new Best Use of Stop and Search scheme.”