# Transcript

SPEAKER:
You’ll conduct many stop and searches during your career as an operational police officer.
It’s a power that regularly comes under scrutiny and criticism from the public and the media, so you need to fully understand the powers of stop and search, and how to use them, before undertaking a stop and search yourself.
Stop and search is a power to be used in public. You can use it on a street or a residential road, on common land such as a park or playing field or a car park.
You can also use it inside buildings to which the public have ready access, whether they have to pay to go in or not, such as a cinema, nightclub, pub, football ground, church or shop.
You can’t do a stop and search inside a private house or other dwelling, but you can search someone in the garden of a house if you believe that they don’t live there, and that they don’t have the permission of the person who lives in the house to be there.
The person being searched must stay with you for the duration of the search and you have a legal power to require them to do this.
The powers also allow you to search vehicles or anything in or on a vehicle.
As a police officer, to use these powers you can be in uniform or in plain, civilian clothes. But if you’re not in uniform, then you’ll need to show your warrant card to the person you intend to search.