The Police And Criminal Act 1984 (PACE)

Primary role of the police is to prevent the occurrence of crime, and when a crime is committed to act upon and gather reliable evidence that will establish a guilty verdict within the courts (REF…….). in order to do this the police, have to act within accordance to the law and follow the procedures set out by the “The Police and Criminal Act 1984” (PACE). PACE was passed to prevent any miss-conduct from occurring from police and suspect (Ozin et al. 2006). This essay will address some of the issues that have been raised with relation to safeguarding the rights of the suspect and how PACE protects the suspect pre-trial stages. It shall examine the following parts of PACE; Part 1 stop and search, Part 3 Arrest, Part 4 Detention and Part 6 Codes of practice----General. With a focus on how these particular areas effect those from black, minority and ethnic groups (BME).
Before 1984, laws governing the police were to some extent nonexistent, leading to misconduct and miscarriages of justice: one example of this is the Birmingham Six, who were wrongly convicted of the pubs bombing in Birmingham city Centre in 1974. Is was proven that evidence was manipulated to help create a conviction and imprisonment of the suspects (Zanders, 2005). With many other incidences also occurring this led to PACE coming a welcomed policy within the criminal justice system …show more content…
The Act bounces back from one area to another without any proper clarification on an