let me just return to something Hogan-Howe said. He referred to the disproportionate use of 'stop and search' powers by police against black and ethnic minorities. This was a constant flash-point of struggle with the police in the twentieth century, more explicitly racialised in the post-war era. Reducing its use would seem to be a plausible goal. However, it is important not to get too swept up in the idea that there will be a reduction in racist harrassment by police. Hogan-Howe favours a more targeted, smarter 'stop and search' policy - the technological solution again - and a more 'professional' manner of interaction between police and the subject of 'stop and search'. Now, it is notable that this does not any specific legal or even necessarily administrative restraint. Hogan-Howe mentions none, at any rate. Rather, it involves discretion in the use of police powers. And this discretion, coming under the rubric of 'professionalism', is something that actively undermines accountability, because it renders their conduct dependent on the immediate calculable variables of a given situation, for which no one can legislate or even dictate guidelines. Gilroy and Simm point out that the logic of professionalization has always been to free the police from legal accountability.
