An analysis of the police use of stop and search since the Macpherson report indicates that combatting racism was prioritised for a short time but since 2001 has ceased to be a key priority. Disproportionality has increased; stop and search no longer needs to be based on grounds of reasonable suspicion; and stop and accounts which were subject to monitoring as a result of the Macpherson report do not now need to be monitored. While stop and search leads to few arrests, it clearly alienates young people from minority ethnic communities, and, as the reading the riots survey indicated, was one of the triggers for the riots in August 2011. In the light of this, it is high time that the police reflected on their routine practices which still remain indirectly discriminatory