Mechanisms of the social control of children and young people: From ‘stop and search’ to ‘stop and engage’ in Police Scotland

Abstract

Since the implementation of stop and search reform in Scotland, the volume of this tactic has decreased and proportionality has increased. However, little has been published that has detailed the design, communication and implementation of stop and search reform in Scotland. This article traces the policy intentions of this reform programme and demonstrates that these aligned with central tenets of procedural justice theory. This article then examines ethnographic data regarding the dissemination and implementation of reform into police practice between 2016 and 2018, which demonstrates that the procedural justice intentions of reform to improve the policing of Scotland’s children and young people were not reproduced in practice. Instead, reform paved the way for the emergence of a new and unscrutinised practice that came to be known as ‘stop and engage’ that has enabled the continued antagonistic and over-policing of young people in the post-reform environment.