Edinburgh Napier University

  In the context of increased attention and scrutiny regarding stop and search in Scotland, the introduction of Police Scotland’s stop and search pilot, which aims to improve data recording practices,
accountability and community confidence in the use of stop and search, is to be welcomed. Prior to this surprisingly little research or academic attention had been devoted to stop and search in Scotland, save some notable exceptions (see Background, Section 2 below). Police Scotland selected ‘P’ Division as the
pilot site and the pilot was launched in Fife in July 2014, with support being provided by the National Stop and Search Unit. An independent academic evaluation was commissioned at the end of that month, with an expectation that the final report would be delivered in March 2015. Our tender was accepted in
August 2014 and we began our work in September 2014, with our researcher arriving in mid-November 2014. We concluded our data collection period in February 2015....