Report on police stop and search practice

ID check is the most frequently used police measure in Hungary: on average, more than 1.5 million checks have been conducted in recent years. However, the practice of ID checks has not been analyzed so far. Therefore, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee sought to assess the typical grounds of ID checks and the efficiency of this police measure in the framework of the Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search (STEPSS) project financially supported by the European Commission’s AGIS Program and the Open Society Institute. It was also examined whether there is a discriminatory tendency regarding ID checks, namely if members of the Roma minority are ID checkedin unjustified and disproportionate numbers compared to their non-Roma peers. The current report provides a brief description of the project methodology and the sometimes surprising results of the project.

Control(led) group – Final report on the Strategies for Effective Police Stop and Search (STEPSS) Project