We should all be concerned that Sir Paul Stephenson, the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is advocating the continued and widespread use of the historically failed tool of "stop and search", which allows the police to act without the need for "reasonable grounds" as in Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. Claims by the police and other government agencies that stop and search is saving the lives of our young people are false. Clearly this is far from the case. The propaganda and rhetoric that emanate are simply designed to appease a public already wounded and hurt. I have written elsewhere and on too many occasions about the excessive use of stop and search in a flawed attempt at justice; alienating instead a generation of young people who appear powerless in the face of this adult use of power. These blanket swoops into communities and neighbourhoods without intelligence or justification, as in the case of the draconian use of Section 60, is a clear abuse and an infringement of our civil liberties. It is a costly exercise in public relations that cannot be sustained. No community is going to idly sit by and accept the long-term and extensive use of stop and search; it is a dangerous proposition, and Stephenson needs to take heed. When examining the police use of force, stop and search remains one of their most powerful and expensive tools, yet there is no evidence that it works. It is meant to be used as a tactic of last resort; to be no more than is needed; and to be justifiable to the public and with its consent. Given the scale of the current excessive use – young people have been stopped and searched more than 209,269 times since May last year alone – it is clear that the police have failed miserably with regard to their own guiding principles. With an arrest rate of only 3%, in seeking to tackle the few who cause harm, the police are on track instead to alienate the many. At this rate there will be a disproportionate number of innocent young people in London whose childhood experience will be one of stop and search. Those who have experienced it will know how traumatic this practice is and neither the police nor the Conservative mayor of London have set out any plans for how young people will be supported in the aftermath of this experience. The police have been allowed to act with impunity because of the apparent accepted negative attitudes towards children and young people; for example, our rate of incarceration of young people is already one of the highest in Europe and our age of criminal responsibility (at 10) is one of the lowest. The vast majority of young people are law abiding. It is unfortunate that the actions of a small minority and the lack of early prevention are stigmatising whole neighbourhoods, communities and young people themselves. Yes, we are living in an increasingly violent society. But this is spurred on by global dynamics, and our children and young people have become collateral damage. There are too many young people who are products of generational poverty, commercialism and corporate greed and are vulnerable, for example, to an international global network of violence that appears to have infiltrated our TV screens, games consoles and digital media. We have a societal responsibility to protect our children and young people. Better policing solutions, such as Operation Trident, involve intelligence-led policing and community partnership and more sophisticated prevention, tackling for example the trade in dangerous weapons. The police could also spend more time confronting a multibillion-pound drugs industry trading on our inner-city doorsteps. They could deploy more policing resources to deal with the cyberspace infiltration of those who would abuse the mindset of children and young people. The real long-term solutions however are societal – based on tackling the economic, social and political inequalities that have led to a poverty of aspiration and, for too many young people and families, a lack of opportunities ahead. Our children and young people are our future and we as adults are accountable, it is our responsibility to challenge the intrusive use of stop and search and enable our children to have a better childhood. Claudia Webbe claudia.webbe@gmail.com